


Brother's Keeper

by Coneycat



Series: Housemates [3]
Category: Being Human (UK), Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Character Interpretation, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brother Feels, Community: norsekink, Crossover, Family, Forgiveness, Friendship, Gen, Redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-18
Updated: 2012-04-12
Packaged: 2017-10-29 18:13:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 36
Words: 226,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/322713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coneycat/pseuds/Coneycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick Fury has been replaced as director of SHIELD, and under new leadership the agency is secretive, paranoid, and making bad decisions. Loki's gone missing, and Thor is more concerned with looking for his brother than fighting supervillains. </p><p>The two situations turn out to be connected, in complicated ways that embroil the brothers, the Bristol housemates, and the Avengers in a web of intrigue that reaches across realms. The question is, how many superheroes (and their friends) does it take to change a lightbulb-- or the fate of the world?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was the second day of the summer holidays, and Loki and his supervisor Carol were taking advantage of the absence of students to give the school and its grounds a really thorough cleaning. They did their best to keep on top of things during the term, but it had to be faced: a hundred children were more than a match for two custodians, even if one was frequently referred to as the God of Mischief. (Loki was, strictly speaking, not actually a god at all, but he did not object to the nickname.)

Indeed, it also had to be admitted that Loki's personal proclivities did not make him naturally suited to the position in the first place. He had taken it shortly after his arrival in Bristol, when he was in no position to be picky and saw the wisdom of following his housemates' injunctions to maintain a low profile. While admittedly not the most methodical creature in the Nine Realms, and also not generally much opposed to making a mess, Loki found his interactions with the children enjoyable enough to make the job worth keeping. When local supernatural activity became threatening some months back, he had appointed himself guardian of the school and its inmates and so was bound to stay.

Because of this, and because he liked his supervisor, an older mortal lady who called him "pet," Loki did his best to fulfill his duties to an acceptable standard, with minimal use of magic for fear of calling attention to himself. But truly, by the end of term he sometimes found himself so rushed that, for instance, rather than scrubbing graffiti off the stalls in the boys' lavatory, he sometimes resorted to casting a quick spell to replace any obscenities with the limericks of Edward Lear, or an adjuration to consume adequate daily portions of vegetables, while he went on to something more pressing.

By this time of year a thorough turning-out was definitely in order. The day being sunny and warm, Loki volunteered to work outside for the morning while Carol ran the polishing machine up and down the corridors. He spent some time raking up little bits of detritus-- the remains of squashed food wrappers and the like-- from the playground. He checked to ensure the ants relocated from their old abode near the steps were still safely residing on the far side of the fence, and had a brief chat with a couple of scouting worker ants to remind them of the wisdom of remaining at a distance from humans with poison.

And then he settled down to weeding the flower beds at the front of the school, and incidentally planting certain herbs known for their protective magical qualities. There were already enchantments guarding the property from evil supernatural forces, but Loki believed in playing it safe.

And, of course, when he settled down to a quiet task like that, he found himself once more troubled by the story he had read the night before, just before going to sleep.

Loki frequently ended his day by reading from a book intended for children: the librarian employed at the school had very kindly extended him borrowing privileges, after he presented himself as the offspring of "hippies" who believed in neither fiction nor television, which conveniently explained the numerous gaps in his knowledge of Midgardian popular culture. (After his disappearance earlier in the spring, to assist some of the Avengers with a problem involving a figure from British mythology, most of the inhabitants of the school were aware his history was perhaps a little more complicated than he had given out. Being English, however, they politely allowed his original cover to stand.)

By now he was entranced with the stories, had read his way through a variety of delightful and intermittently upsetting tales (he was extremely wary of any book containing animals, particularly dogs, although the one with the literate spider was the most beautiful and therefore worst of the lot.) It had only recently occurred to him, remembering a conversation with Tony Stark about Norse mythology, that perhaps he would like to find out exactly what stories the primitive mortals had told about his family all those years ago.

There was an appropriate book of myths in the reference area, and Loki had taken it home just before the end of term. Parts of it were enlightening: for instance, he now knew the details behind the story that had amused Stark so much, the one that claimed Loki was the mother of his father's eight-legged horse, Sleipnir. (Of course! He had been a horse himself at the time! Now it all made sense!) Loki being in truth a shapeshifter, that story was a great deal more plausible than most of them, particularly the one in which Thor, for reasons that made no sense to Loki even when he was reading it, had disguised himself as a bride. This tale reduced his entire household to tears of laughter; in fact it was all Loki could do to restrain himself from telephoning Jane Foster on the spot to read the whole thing to her. Had his brother possessed a communication device, he would certainly have done as much to Thor.

And then, of course, because he always ruined everything, Loki had gone on to the end of the book, and had found the story of Ragnarok, the end of all things.

It was his fault, of course, it _would_ be his fault: Loki apparently caused the end of the universe by murdering Balder the Bright. (He didn't even _know_ a Balder whose nickname was "the Bright," why would he _murder_ him? And surely if he did turn to murder [again] he could think of a better weapon than _mistletoe?_ )

And then, in punishment...

Loki grubbed at the dirt, scraping his fingers raw, trying to banish the rest of the story from his mind. He had no children. He had _no children_ , one of the benefits of growing up in circumstances in which no one was willing to touch you was, it kept you out of romantic entanglements with perfectly nice decent young women who married you and bore you children and were then condemned to spend eternity holding a bowl above your face to catch corrosive venom as it dripped into your eyes, and meanwhile you were helpless, tied by your father with bonds formed from the _entrails_ of your _child_...

He shuddered. It was a story, only a story, a total fantasy. There was no Balder the Bright, no Sigyn, no children-- there were never likely to _be_ children, because the closest thing he had managed thus far to an actual romantic entanglement was a shy attachment to his housemate Annie, whose wonderful qualities were too many to enumerate but who was, after all, a ghost…

And besides, no matter _what_ Loki had done or might do, his father would never... _Loki's_ entrails were one matter, there might indeed be circumstances in which he would deserve to be bound by his _own_ entrails, in fact when you considered his history some might argue he'd already earned such a fate, probably twice over, but Father would not... would never... not to an innocent _child_...

Loki stopped what he was doing, looked down at the tiny plant crushed in his hands, and stood up abruptly. This was ridiculous. It was a _story_. Something about it had taken hold of his mind and upset him, it would upset anyone, surely, but it was entirely make-believe. It would be foolish for him to allow a story to ruin his entire day, and especially such a pretty one. He would go have another word with the ants, ants were practical creatures -- down to earth, as the Midgardians said, and the thought made him smile-- and then he would find Carol and work in closer proximity to her for a while. He needed to talk to someone, stop spinning thoughts around in his own head like this. It wasn't good for him to spend too much time with only his thoughts for company-- he had gotten himself in considerable trouble that way before.

As if granting his wish for distraction, a black car pulled into the parking lot of the school, and a man and a woman got out. Loki, as the only representative of the school staff present, walked over to see what they wanted.

Some hours later, when he woke up with his wrists and ankles bound, a collar tight about his neck, and excruciating pain wracking his body in time to every beat of his frantic heart, it crossed his mind that perhaps the myths were not such completely ridiculous fantasies after all.

~oOo~

"We could have used Thor this afternoon," Clint Barton remarked wearily, dropping into a chair. "Anyone have any idea when he's coming back?"

Tony Stark shook his head. "No. There's still no sign of his brother, and I have a feeling we won't be seeing much of him until he figures that out."

Clint grunted. "He ever consider the possibility Loki doesn't want to be found?"

"Don't say that to Thor," Steve Rogers warned as he walked in from the kitchen with three beers carefully held by their necks. "To tell you the truth, I'm worried too. Tony and I met his brother, that time in England, and he's not…"

"Flaky," Tony supplied the word as he accepted a beer.

"Exactly," Steve agreed, handing over the third bottle to Clint, who looked skeptical.

"He's the God of Mischief," he pointed out.

"Yeah," Tony said, "and he's caused trouble before, but he genuinely doesn't seem to want to make a career of it. And I don't think he'd worry Thor like this on purpose."

" _Kill_ him, on the other hand…" Clint muttered.

Steve shook his head. "Again, don't say that to Thor. Whatever happened between them, it seems to be forgiven."

Clint snorted, but he suddenly looked thoughtful. Given Clint was the only one of the three who had a brother, and given their relationship, maybe he actually understood Thor's attitude.

Tony had just opened his mouth to chip in again when Pepper walked in, looking frustrated. Tony knew better, but he called out, "Hey, Pepper, tell me you've got good news."

Pepper gave him a look that should have reduced him to a smoking heap of empty clothing. "If you mean good news about the inhibitor prototype, no. I have no news, good or otherwise. I thought SHIELD was secretive when Nick Fury was in charge, but dealing with Maria Hill is like trying to have a friendly conversation with the Berlin Wall. The one new piece of information that slipped out is, the prototype is in use right now, and it seems to work."

Tony set his beer down. "It's _in use?_ It can't be in use, it was a beta version. Hardly even a beta. It hasn't been properly tested. We don’t even know if it has side effects-- "

Pepper raised both hands, a gesture that indicated she was exhausted and at the end of her patience. "I know that, Tony. That's what I told Agent Hill. She doesn't seem to be concerned. Maybe Dr. Strange volunteered to field-test it after all or something. Anyway, if we want it back we're going to have to sue them." Tony cursed, took a sip of his beer, thought about it. Pepper went on, "From a business point of view I don't even know if it's worth it. We'd be tied up in litigation until the next century."

Tony looked incredulous. "SHIELD _took_ a piece of our technology. Yes, they contributed to the project, but it's still proprietary Stark Industries tech, and they just _took_ it. From a _business_ point of view, we can't afford _not_ to sue their asses. And from a _non_ -business point of view-- "

"I know," Pepper said, sinking onto the couch in a posture of utter yet graceful exhaustion. "From a non-business point of view, if that device has unexpected side effects and they use it on someone, we're morally responsible, and quite possibly legally, too."

"Morally responsible? You?" Clint needled Tony.

"Shut up, Barton," Tony and Pepper said together.

The inhibitor prototype had been a sore spot between Stark Industries and the new regime at SHIELD for more than two months now. SHIELD held the device was an adaptation of restraints currently in use on their helicarriers, and therefore they had intellectual property rights and were justified in seizing it.

The current restraints worked fine, in fact Tony had seen them in action during a misunderstanding with Thor's little brother and was now of the opinion they might actually work a bit too well: after being tied up for about half an hour, Loki had not only been unable to cast magic for quite some time, he couldn't even stand up unassisted. Tony was also pretty sure that if it had been necessary to put him back into the restraints later they would have had a fight on their hands, and they probably would have had to hurt him.

It had struck Tony that it would be easier on everyone if the inhibitor system was more portable, more like handcuffs, something the prisoner could wear while being transported or while in a cell, could move around in, with settings that could be remotely adjusted to keep him harmless but not totally drained. Part of Loki's issue had seemed to be just the apprehension caused by being unable to move, which was understandable and probably not uncommon. Tony figured that, if you could just put the restraints on and leave them, adjusting the settings as necessary, you'd have less trouble with the prisoners.

He had actually developed an entirely new system, one that dealt with the magic differently, something totally new and not, in fact, based on existing SHIELD tech at all. SHIELD had kicked in some instruments for Stark to use in initial testing, and had funded part of the project to ensure they got first crack at the completed device, but that was the extent of their involvement.

Theoretically, the device should work, but without a magical volunteer to test the prototype on, Tony couldn't be confident that it would, or that nothing untoward would happen to the prisoner. He'd actually been planning to try and recruit Steve Strange and Loki to participate in some practical testing, once he was satisfied with the prototype.

And then SHIELD had decided Stark Industries, who had _built_ the damn thing, had created the tech, wasn't secure enough to keep it safe, and the next thing Tony knew he was looking at a message from his engineering team, saying the lab had been raided-- that was the only word that seemed adequate-- and the prototype confiscated.

As Pepper said, SHIELD had been secretive enough when Fury was in charge, but Fury had recently been replaced as director by Maria Hill. Rumour had it that Fury was thought to be getting soft, which made Tony shudder a little at the thought of what that said about Hill. The only person in the agency who would speak to him these days was Coulson, who was a field agent and therefore not privy to the kind of information Tony needed. Besides, Coulson was a Fury holdover and not in Hill's good books anyway.

It was just about possible, though, that Coulson would be able to find out more about the use to which the prototype was being put. If it was being used on a prisoner and Tony could get a look at its effects, he might at least have a leg to stand on when he demanded it back to finish the testing.

"You know what's weird," Steve said suddenly. "I can't think of anyone we've arrested recently who was a magic user. You'd think we'd have been called out in a case involving someone like that."

Tony and Clint looked at each other. That _was_ weird.

"So who are they using it on?" Clint asked. It was a rhetorical question, but Steve went a little pale, and all four of them looked at each other.

"Oh, no," Steve said weakly.

"Can't be," Tony agreed, but not as if he entirely believed it.

Pepper got to her feet. "Do you have Coulson's number?"

~oOo~

Thor generally preferred coffee, but Annie made a wonderful cup of tea. She was able to do so even when beside herself with worry, so it was almost a shame that nobody seemed able to drink it.

"Still nothing?" Mitchell said, turning the steaming mug in his hands.

Thor shook his head. "Nothing. I have spoken to Heimdall again, there is still no sign of him." He did not have to explain what that might mean: Heimdall should be able to see Loki unless he was cloaked by magic-- his own or another's-- or dead.

Heimdall had not seen Loki since the day six weeks ago, when he had walked across the schoolyard and vanished.

Trying to offer hope, though he was not sure whether he offered it for the others or himself, Thor went on, "Sif and the Warriors are still searching on other realms, and will let me know what they find." There was no reason to think Loki would willingly travel to one of the other realms alone, far from certain he was even capable of doing so with only his own magic to carry him, but it was better to be doing something.

George, the bespectacled werewolf, spoke now: "We've spoken to the police again, and there's no sign of him." Ordinarily the housemates-- a ghost, a werewolf, a vampire, and until six weeks ago a godlike alien sorcerer-- would take great pains to avoid contact with the police, but Carol was human, and Carol knew Loki was missing, and therefore they had to behave as "normally" as possible over the disappearance.

"They're not looking very hard for him," Mitchell said. "He's an adult, he wasn't afraid of anyone or in any trouble, so I think they assume he just did a runner for some reason of his own."

Annie rubbed her temples. "Tell him about the vampires."

Thor sat up straighter. "What about the vampires?"

Mitchell stalled for a moment by drinking his cooling tea. The vampire situation in Bristol had been complicated for a long time, and since Mitchell had gone "on the wagon," his relationship with the rest of the community had been even more so: not quite one of them, never entirely outcast, but opposed to the occasional power plays dreamed up by creatures with eternity on their hands and not enough to do with it.

"Did we tell you about the protective spells Loki placed on the school and the hospital?" Mitchell asked. Thor shook his head. "Well, back a few months ago, when the vampire situation got hairy, Loki got worried about vampires attacking the school just to piss him off, so he placed a ward on the grounds. Later he put the same spell on the hospital where George and I work, for the same reason." Thor nodded to show he understood: if Loki and his friends were seen as enemies by these creatures, the risk of attack on anything or anyone they were attached to was increased. "The way the spell worked was, if a supernatural creature with evil intent tried to get onto the property, they'd be chased away by an enchanted rhinoceros."

"An enchanted _mother_ rhinoceros," George specified, remembering Loki's insistence. "With an enchanted calf tagging along after it."

"A rhinoceros?" Thor repeated.

"Yes, large plant-eating animal with a horn on its nose-- ?" George explained.

"I am familiar with the beast. But why did--?"

"Why did he choose it? Search me," Mitchell replied. "For some reason, he likes rhinos."

"They look like monsters, but they're not," Annie explained, picking up her untouched mug and going to the sink to pour it out. Nobody had any response. Mitchell picked up the thread of his story.

"The point is, a couple of days ago George and I were in the canteen at the hospital, and two vampires just walked right in. The source of the magic powering the enchantments was Loki himself, obviously, and now he's out of range or hurt or… Anyway, the vampires have figured out his spells aren't keeping them out anymore, and they'll probably realize that means _he_ isn't around right now. And I mean, he's our friend, not a defensive weapon, but the fact is, just knowing he was around was enough to keep the more ambitious vampires from getting ideas, especially after what happened to their last leader."

Thor looked worried. "I would offer to speak to someone in SHIELD about this matter, to see if the London office can help you, but it must be admitted my confidence in the agency has suffered since Nick Fury was replaced as director." He thought a moment. "I will give you the telephone number and computer mail address of Tony Stark. He is frivolous but trustworthy, and he likes you. Should you need my help, contact Stark and let him know." Thor set aside his mug and rose to his feet. "Also, contact Stark if you hear anything from my brother. I will be back in touch soon, and certainly the moment I hear anything."

"Thank you," Annie said, trying not to sound as forlorn as she felt. Thor reached out a powerful arm and embraced her.

"We will find him. Everything will be all right."

~oOo~

In the beginning, guards had come in twice a day, once to leave a tray of food, once to retrieve the utensils. They were uniformed, in black, with black helmets and face shields that made them look, that made them look like… scurrying, on the earth, marching two by two…

In the beginning he had tried to talk to them, not to plead, but to ingratiate, to become real to them, it was harder to hurt you if you were real. He remembered a man with pale hair on his face, and a quiet one, darker, a large one with a great deal of hair, face and head, and a woman. He had not been real to them, not ever, he was not real to anyone and so no one would help him, no one would make it stop.

He was not sure how many guards there were, had tried at first to take note of how they moved, no voices to go by, they never spoke, tried to tell them apart, to remember which was which so he could tell whether he had spoken to them before, see if talking worked at all, but it was too hard, they all ran together two by two in the confusion and pain.

He no longer spoke, it was too hard, too many gaps, so many words missing, so hard to think. He had stopped trying to prevent himself from whimpering.

He could move his hands just enough to feed himself, at least at first, the cuffs that burned his wrists connected by a cable behind his back, elbows also bound by a cable that limited how far forward his hands could go. Once, early, no telling how long ago, he nearly got one hand free before the guards came in, smell of blood but no pain, none he could distinguish from the rest, and now the cuffs were tighter, wrists and ankles, tight like the collar, and the pain was worse.

The pain was now the only thing he was sure about, the only thing he knew, like everything being pulled apart and crushed and pulled apart again. He had been angry and afraid, and then just afraid, and now the pain was all that remained.

After a while they stopped bringing food, it only made him sick, the guards had come with… hose, spraying water, drain in the floor, and now the cell smelled persistently like sickness and damp. There was sharpness in his hand and a bottle of something hanging above him. Now the guards came, two by two, only often enough to change the bottle, see he was still alive.

He thought he was still alive.

In the beginning he had thought about rescue, dreamed of someone coming for him… bright hair and red swirling at the shoulders… but he could no longer tell whether that had ever been real or was a fantasy, his mind trying to comfort him. No one knew where he was, or no one cared, or probably both.

He was not real, not to anyone, not to himself. No one was coming to find him.

He was not real. Only the pain was real.

The pain, and the end. He did not remember how he knew this, but he waited for the end of everything.

~oOo~

The phone had rung three times before Tony got to it, shouldering gently past Steve, who never trusted himself not to accidentally cut the connection when he tried to pick up the call.

"Stark," Tony announced himself.

"Coulson. I've found out about your device."

"Yeah?" Tony prompted.

"It's being used on a prisoner named Laufeyson, first initial, L." Coulson paused, and after a second Tony figured it out for himself.

"'Son of Laufey and of Odin,'" Tony said, quoting a supernatural creature's greeting to Loki on their adventure together. "Son of a _bitch._ What in hell did he do?"

"Can't find any charges," Coulson replied. "Might even be an end run around the mutant registration legislation that's stuck in committees. A lot of people in offices here are nervous about the idea of powerful supernaturals walking around loose with no one keeping tabs on them. And Loki didn't do himself any favours with the thing in New Mexico."

"Yeah," Tony agreed, mind spinning. SHIELD had a file on Loki from the killer-robot-from-space incident, a file that certainly painted a picture of an aspiring young supervillain. And the fact he'd maintained a low profile since hadn't really done him any good, since his file began and ended with the Puente Antigua affair. There should have been something added after the episode in England, he'd been very helpful and Steve for one owed him big time, but it would have been inserted by Fury. Maybe Fury's good word wasn't enough anymore.

Speaking of whom--

"Where's Fury?" Tony asked.

"Fishing in Costa Rica. Officially," Coulson replied, his voice neutral.

That could mean anything from, "Fury was really fishing in Costa Rica," to "Fury was engaged in covert operations above the Arctic Circle." Tony knew better than to press Coulson.

"Have you spoken to him?"

"Loki? No."

"Can you get me in to see him?" Tony persisted. There was silence from Coulson for a moment, and Tony didn't press him. Coulson was a career agent, not a billionaire playboy genius philanthropist, and Tony was asking him for a favour that wouldn't do his career any good at all.

On the other hand, Thor was one of their guys, and Thor was really worried about his little brother.

And they probably owed Loki, at least enough to make sure he was all right, was locked up for a good reason.

"Yeah," Coulson said. "I'll get back to you. Don't call."

And the line went dead.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for a description of the aftermath of physical abuse.

Coulson met Tony at his private airfield and drove him to SHIELD's New York headquarters. While it was true that SHIELD never really slept, it was late enough that anyone with a home to go to would have done so by now. Coulson had all the appropriate clearances-- Tony had never run into a clearance yet that Coulson didn't have-- but with no specific reason to be visiting the prisoner, even Coulson might have embarrassing questions to answer at a busier time of day.

Ordinarily, Tony would have found the idea of the deadpan agent squirming under interrogation pretty entertaining, even at the cost of inconvenience to himself. At the moment, though, he was more concerned with getting his prototype back and reassuring Thor that his little brother was safe. Thor wouldn't be pleased to find out Loki was under arrest, and based on his attitude during the misunderstanding in England he probably wouldn't let himself believe Loki was actually guilty of anything, but at least he'd know where the little twister was.

Tony was a bit surprised to find himself relieved, too. Okay, yeah, he found it easy to believe Loki had gotten up to something that landed him in trouble, but he was simultaneously also readily able to believe whatever Loki had done, there was probably no real harm intended. Thor's brother struck him more as an incurable smartass than actually malicious.

 _Sound like anyone you know, Tony?_ asked a little voice in his head, the one that sometimes tried to get him to use his good sense. It sounded a lot like Pepper. He shushed it and reminded himself that at least in SHIELD custody, Loki was safe. Probably scared and furious by now, but it beat the alternatives Thor had certainly been worrying about.

Speaking of whom…

"I should probably thank you for not telling Thor about this," Coulson remarked in his pleasantly neutral voice, eyes flicking automatically from the road to his rearview mirrors at exactly the rate recommended by driving instructors everywhere. "Having him charge in brandishing his hammer wouldn't help the situation."

"I didn't have a chance," Tony admitted. "He still hadn't checked in when I left, and I have no idea where he is right now. Scouring the universe for any sign of his little brother, I suppose. It's kind of touching, when you think about it."

"Heartwarming," Coulson agreed coolly. "Okay. When we get to HQ, we're going in by the side entrance. Cells are on subterranean level two, Loki's in S2-11. Oh, and Dr. Strange said he'd speak to you. We're meeting him off-site after we leave HQ. He's checked on Loki a few times to see how the inhibitor is working, so he'll have some insights for your engineering team."

"Terrific," Tony said. "Remind me to put both of you on my Christmas card list."

Coulson's lips curved into one of his meaningless smiles, then he conscientiously checked his blind spot, and took the exit off the highway. Fifteen minutes later he was parking in a public lot a few blocks from SHIELD headquarters. The two men entered the building by the agents' entrance, which Tony had never used. He was slightly disappointed that it wasn't disguised by a tailor's shop, like UNCLE headquarters in the old TV series, but he didn't waste the joke on Coulson.

The agent silently entered his access code for the elevator, which descended so smoothly and quietly Tony had almost no sensation of movement. For some reason, that struck him as creepy. He had never been on the confinement level of the building, all his previous visits to HQ having been to the admin level or the labs. He'd never given much thought to where prisoners were kept while they waited to be handed over to the criminal justice system.

When he stepped out of the elevator and found himself surrounded by shining steel walls, the doors barely distinguishable from the walls around him, he was surprised by the jolt of claustrophobia it provoked. Two levels underground there would be no windows in the cells, and the overall effect suddenly reminded him of an Edgar Allen Poe story about being buried alive.

There weren't any guards on this level at the moment, all monitoring apparently done remotely. Coulson entered another code, one that presumably confirmed his right to be there, and gestured to Tony to follow him.

Cell S2-11 was nearly at the end of the polished steel corridor. It was utterly silent down here. Either there were no other prisoners at the moment-- which was possible, since this was intended as a temporary holding area for prisoners awaiting arraignment and trial-- or they were all asleep-- also likely, at this hour of the night.

Or, and this was feasible too, although Tony found himself unwilling to think too hard about it, perhaps behind every door was a lost soul screaming for someone to let them out, but the cells were soundproofed so thoroughly that nobody could hear them. Not buried, but walled up alive. What the hell was the name of that story?

Coulson entered an access code and a monitor outside cell S2-11 came alive. He pushed a button that activated the intercom and said calmly, "Please move away from the-- "

And then he fell silent, so abruptly Tony's heart hitched in apprehension. "What?"

Coulson ignored him, stared into the monitor for a moment, then punched in a second code. The door slid silently open.

The first thing Tony noticed was the smell. There was a drain in the concrete floor, which probably explained the clammy scent of damp, but more pervasive was the stink of stale vomit, like someone had been sick over and over and the floor and drains had never been properly cleaned. Underlying it was a smell like a neglected public toilet.

The cell was dimly lit. With no windows, it was possible the light was always at the same disorienting, neutral level, and it would not take long for a prisoner to completely lose track of time. The cell was about fifteen feet deep by ten wide, with an exposed toilet on the back wall, to the left as you came in the door. Built into the right-hand wall, all edges rounded and smoothed, was a metal bunk with a thin, plastic-covered pad in place of a mattress, and no bedding. Tony assumed the precaution was so a prisoner couldn't hang himself with a sheet, though he couldn't see any projections that would even make this possible. He still understood the rationale: after a day or two in this environment he'd be feeling suicidal, himself.

Lying on the bunk, a miserably defenseless-looking bundle of long skinny limbs, was a black-haired figure in blue SHIELD scrubs.

Just for a second, Tony thought Loki was already dead. Then he heard the hissing noise of his breathing, punctuated by an occasional whimper, involuntary-sounding, as if he was emitting it without being able to hear himself and without any expectation it would bring anyone to help him. His teeth were clenched, lips pulled back, and he was breathing rapidly and shallowly, in a way that reminded Tony of something. It took him a moment to place it: years ago, when he was a teenager, he'd been driving up in the mountains when a coyote bolted out in front of him and he'd hit it. The animal had breathed just like that as it went into shock and died.

Tony squatted and made himself look at the sharp-angled, bony face in front of him. It was impossible to tell for sure whether he was conscious, although you would think if he was unconscious his face would look less drawn. Loki's eyes were open and moving, apparently aimlessly, almost the way a person's eyes move in REM sleep. He was obviously not focusing, in fact Tony didn't think he could see anything at all. Tony passed a hand in front of the moving eyes, and got no reaction. The pupils were huge, maybe because of the dim light, maybe from shock.

It was manifestly obvious Loki did not need to be restrained, but the inhibitor collar-- Tony had been uncomfortable with the collar from the beginning, there was something so flatly dehumanizing about it, he'd intended to think of some other option to replace it-- was fastened around his throat, a little too tightly to avoid discomfort, and wide metal cuffs encircled his wrists and ankles. Leads from the collar and cuffs disappeared under the back of the scrub shirt, where they connected to the control pack harnessed to Loki's chest. It was an awkward setup, uncomfortable-looking and complicated to put on and take off, but this was a prototype, it didn't need to be practical yet. When he was sure the tech worked, Stark Industries would have gone into ergonomics.

The on-and-off issue might have been why the control pack was under Loki's shirt instead of outside it, but by the look of him he hadn't changed his shirt in a while, or showered, anyway. Tony remembered a complaint Loki had had about the helicarrier restraints and gently lifted one wrist-- not far, there was a second cable passing behind his back, connecting the cuffs to restrict his range of motion. The cable could be retracted remotely to bind the prisoner's hands at the small of his back, but even at full extension he'd barely be able to clasp them in front of himself at his waist, and there was a second cable looped around his elbows to restrict motion still further, just to make absolutely sure a particularly flexible prisoner couldn't somehow jump-rope his hands to the front, where the cable could become a weapon.

Tony wasn't thinking about the possibility of Loki trying to strangle him with the cable. He was remembering the way the helicarrier restraints had burned his unprotected wrists. He'd hoped the Stark version of the restraints would avoid whatever defensive magical reaction had caused that to happen. A quick manipulation of the wrist and the cuff-- which elicited a pained hiss that was the first reaction to outside stimuli Loki had displayed-- revealed that no, that was not the case: the skin under the metal had the look of a festering third-degree burn.

Tony started to let go of Loki's wrist, caught himself and lowered it gently to lie against his hip instead. He checked quickly to confirm Loki wasn't wearing socks, which meant his ankles were in the same state. He couldn't bring himself to push the scrub shirt up to see what the control pack tethered to his chest had done.

 _Thor is going to kick my ass,_ was his first coherent thought.

 _Good,_ was his next.

Tony resisted the urge to make a uselessly would-be comforting gesture like stroking Loki's head: indications were that he wouldn't be able to understand it, and the contact would probably just hurt him. Instead, he straightened and turned to Coulson. To his amazement, the poker-faced agent looked genuinely disturbed.

"I had no idea this was going on," Coulson said emphatically. "I didn't even know he was here until you asked me to check." He paused. "You can't get out without the access codes, and if they're activated in an unexpected pattern it'll attract the attention of the security guards. We'll have to leave together. Just a second." Coulson stepped through the open door and did something on the keypad. From inside the cell, Tony could see the reflection of a red light flashing next to the monitor. Coulson came back inside. "Okay. All the security doors on the fifteenth floor just started opening and closing on their own, and the sprinklers on twelve came on. Can you carry him yourself, or do you need a hand?"

Tony realized his mouth was hanging open, and closed it.

Then he turned back to the bunk and gathered Loki into his arms.

~oOo~

It ended up taking both of them to carry Loki to the car: skinny as he was, he was also much taller than Tony or Coulson and that made him an awkward deadweight. Coulson ended up leaving Tony and Loki hiding in an alley, Tony desperately trying to shush the involuntary pained noises Loki made when he was jostled, and went for the car. By the time he brought it back he had also called Strange and told him to meet them at the airport.

"You're still going to need to know what he observed," Coulson explained as he drove.

" _Observed_ is right," Tony snarled from the back seat, where he was trying to keep what felt like a sack of bones in filthy clothing from tumbling onto the floor of the vehicle. Every time he tightened his arms, Loki twitched and whimpered. "Why didn't he _do_ something?"

"Strange doesn't actually care," Coulson explained. Coming from _Coulson_ , that was quite an indictment.

"How much trouble are you going to be in for this?" Tony asked, the thought suddenly striking him.

Coulson shrugged. "The access codes I used were all assigned to Maria Hill, and I rerouted the security cameras on level S2 with a feed from S1 as we exited the elevator the first time. Thank goodness nobody seems to have gone down the corridor on S1 while we were downstairs. Don't worry about me."

Tony stared at the back of Coulson's head. "Well, thanks."

"Eh. Might help my cause if Thor decides to come back and level the place." He glanced in the rearview. "Besides, I like his friends."

"Yeah," Tony said slowly, looking down at the scarecrow sprawled across his lap. The werewolf, the vampire, and the invisible girl. They weren't going to be any happier than Thor when they found out what was going on. And then another thought struck him: "How much does SHIELD know about those three?"

Coulson's neck seemed to stiffen a little. "I don't think Fury started a file on any of them. Sort of a courtesy to them, for their help on the thing in England. I'll check on that, though."

"Okay," Tony said. "That would be great. It might be an idea for me to stash them somewhere, too, until we figure out what's going on here."

"Well, don't tell me," Coulson instructed, keeping his eyes on the road.

~oOo~

One of the benefits of having your own airfield and your own jet was, you got to set the level of security checks. So if you wanted to come aboard carrying a Swiss Army knife you'd borrowed from Coulson, nobody said a word. The same was true if you asked the flight crew for assistance in carrying one of the other passengers aboard. Tony had made an initial airy comment about his friend needing rescue from an out-of-control bachelor party, which nobody but an idiot would have believed, but he'd also made it clear the unconscious guy in the passenger cabin was classified information. Tony paid his staff extremely well, and they knew he could be very concrete in his appreciation of their discretion.

Dr. Strange hadn't seemed bothered by Tony' request-- it was a little stronger than a request-- that he take a flight across the country so he could tell Tony his theories about how why the inhibitor had done what it had to Loki. Tony had had some bizarre conversations under unusual circumstances in his life, but the mixture of science and magic Strange spewed while Tony used Coulson's borrowed knife to disassemble the device and get Loki out of it had to count as one of the weirder ones. He'd finally had to ask Strange to cut to the executive summary. With a shrug, and no sign of noticing the half-naked, half-dead body between them, Strange complied:

"Essentially, the mistake made by you and most others who try to confine magic by science is this: it is not the same as draining a water tank and waiting for the levels to rise up again. Magic defends itself. Magic hides. Your device, and others like it, can drain off the excess, making it temporarily impossible for the victim" -- Tony did not feel he had the moral high ground to object to the use of the term -- "to cast magic. But a mechanical device cannot get at the wellspring, so it has to attack something else. The restraints on the helicarrier reduce physical functioning, which slows down the recovery period of the magic. What this device seems to do is, it attacks the means by which the magic lives."

"What do you mean by that?" Tony asked, trying to keep his voice quiet, his hands on the device-- and therefore on Loki-- gentle.

"Genuine carriers of magic are not common on this world-- most of us resort to spellbooks and potions. So it's not surprising that someone like you would assume that this creature's magic is something extra, carried separately from his knowledge and emotions and thoughts. It is not, it is intricately woven through all of them. And so your device, since it cannot get hold of the magic, works by draining everything that might feed or power it. Pride, anger, ambition, hatred. Kindness, altruism, love. Hope. Whatever he feels or thinks or wants, all of it serves to feed his magic.

"I visited the prisoner at two-week intervals and it was striking how limited his emotional range had become between the first visit and the last. Obviously, considering the kind of pain he was in-- mostly psychosomatic, incidentally, although of course he experienced it perfectly concretely-- he would not have displayed any of the more positive emotions, and over a period of six weeks a certain amount of exhaustion set in, but even the degree of fear evidenced at the two-week point seemed strangely muted, considering his situation. On my last visit, his only discernable emotion was despair. That sensation, of course, tends to remain when everything else is gone.

"A native magic user like this one would also use magic intellectually, possibly even as a form of communication. So that was also attacked by your device. Even by the two-week mark, he demonstrated significantly impaired language skills. At this point it seems unlikely he understands a word anyone says to him."

"And you didn't think to mention this to anyone at SHIELD?" Tony demanded.

Strange looked startled. "Of course I did. There was a great deal of interest."

Tony closed his eyes for a moment. "What I meant was, did nobody stop and think, 'hey, this is going a little too far, maybe we should turn the thing off for a while'?"

Strange looked at Tony as thought he had said something very stupid. "That would have interfered with the observational study. Certainly, at some point it would be necessary to do so, but the device wasn't going to kill him, and he was still demonstrating interesting behaviours."

Tony wondered how much effort it would take to open the pressurized door and throw Strange out of the airplane. "And it never occurred to you that what you were doing was unethical or cruel, no matter what he was accused of doing?"

Strange gave Tony another of his are-you-stupid smiles. " _I_ was not doing anything, I was merely interpreting what _your_ device did. And _he_ is not accused of anything, Mr. Stark."

Tony forgot about rejecting the blame for what the device had done, and frankly stared. "He's-- what? You mean he actually didn't _do_ anything?"

Strange shook his head. "Apart from the incident in New Mexico, no." At Tony's incredulous look, Strange sighed. "Don't be naïve, Mr. Stark. They needed to test the device on a known magic carrier. They're not easy to find. In fact, I can't think of another one offhand, at least one so easily accessible."

"Easily accessible," Tony thought bleakly, obviously meant "going trustingly about his business on the assumption he didn't have to routinely worry about random abduction and imprisonment." Although come to think of it, after the misunderstanding between him and the Avengers a few months ago, you'd think he'd be more on his guard. Of course, SHIELD was good at this kind of thing when they needed to be.

Strange was still justifying himself. "And he is both potentially dangerous, and non-human. He was a fairly obvious subject to choose. Surely, had your testing gone forward, you would have thought of the same thing."

Tony opened his mouth to protest, but the fact was, he _had_ planned to ask Loki to test the device for him. With the rather significant difference that he'd thought of a span of a couple of hours, not six weeks-- at full power the whole time, as far as he could tell-- and if Loki had said, "Hey, this hurts!" the test would have ended right there. Tony was trying to create a more humane alternative to the helicarrier restraints, not an implement of torture.

Strange was looking at him very oddly. "Apparently you find all this upsetting, but you should know as well as anyone that sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the advancement of knowledge."

"Yeah. Of course."

Tony's eyes went to the pressurized door again.


	3. Chapter 3

Tony didn't throw Strange out of the plane. In fact, when they landed, Tony didn't even throw him out of the car. As much as he wanted to load the good doctor into a cannon and fire him into the sun, he recognized the importance of keeping a close eye on Strange, at least until SHIELD found out the prisoner and the prototype were gone. The minute they realized Loki was gone, and the inhibitor device with him, the culprit would be obvious. Possibly, the agency would assume Tony only took Loki because that was the fastest way to get the at the device. Or, perhaps, someone there was still human enough to remember that Loki was related to Thor, and Thor was a friend of Tony's. Either way, Tony had no doubt at all that as soon as the empty cell was discovered, SHIELD would want to have a word with him.

But that might not be for several hours. Coulson had covered their tracks pretty well on the cell level, and judging by the shape Loki was in, he wasn't the object of SHIELD's constant attention. The monitor Coulson had activated was outside the door: apparently there was no camera watching Loki's every move, or lack thereof, and it was possible his cell was simply part of general rounds-- glance in, make sure he was alive, or maybe just still there, move on. Which meant his absence might easily not be noticed until whenever rounds were, and that might give them some time.

Remembering the stench of the cell, Tony couldn't exactly blame the guards for not wanting to spend any more time in there than they had to. With that said, he did blame the hell out of them for not, say, cleaning the cell properly and taking better care of Loki's personal hygiene and so forth. It seemed a pretty obvious point, that if you put someone in a situation in which they were completely helpless, it was your responsibility to take proper care of them. Tony had learned that at the age of eight with hamsters, for God's sake.

But the point was, maybe nobody would bother to check on Loki until later in the day-- New York time, of course-- which would give Tony a window in which to think of something. He was already thinking of something.

And in the meantime, the last thing Tony needed was Strange on the loose, tattling to SHIELD and costing them the little lead time they had. And since he, Tony Stark, was a Good Guy[TM], that meant that no matter how much he might, right this minute, want to murder Strange and leave him for the coyotes, he couldn't. For one thing, it wouldn't be worth hearing what Steve had to say on the subject. For another, in spite of years of effort, the little singing cockroach that lived on his shoulder (Tony knew your conscience was supposed to be represented by a cricket with an umbrella, but he always pictured his as a cockroach in a fedora) was still there, still making him feel bad whenever he did something really wrong. And killing people, even people like Strange, particularly in cold blood, was Wrong.

So, since he couldn't kill Strange, and the damn cockroach wouldn't even let Tony rough him up real good as a warning, the solution was to bring him along and keep an eye on him so he couldn't alert SHIELD to the situation before they figured it out for themselves. It wasn't like anyone was apt to notice the good doctor's absence right away, given his erratic habits. As a kidnapping victim, he was perfect, except for the detail where Tony couldn't imagine anyone much wanting to get him back.

In fact, kidnapping turned out not to be necessary at all: having gotten to watch Loki's descent into catatonic despair for the good of science-- which he probably would have permitted to continue to its natural conclusion, Tony being quite confident between the device and the neglect that there was no way Loki was supposed to leave that cell alive-- Strange was now equally interested in finding out what the recovery period looked like. He agreed perfectly readily to come along with Tony. Tony had already decided he would persuade Natasha Romanov to keep an eye on Strange, mostly because if she really thought he needed killing, whatever little creature that lived on _her_ shoulder would burst into song and dance and not do one thing to stop her.

Happy met them at the airport with the Bentley, and in spite of years of being used to Tony's freakish behaviour, he couldn't conceal his distress at the sight of Loki. Tony made a mental note to give Happy a substantial raise and additional annual vacation, explained the situation as concisely as he could, and the two of them carried the unconscious God of Mischief to the car. As far as Tony could tell, Strange was making notes the whole damn way.

Happy drove them straight back to the mansion, except for stops at several dumpsters where Tony got rid of the tiny pieces of metal that represented all that was left of the inhibitor device, a few at a time and as far apart as possible.

Steve and Pepper met them at the door when they arrived, worry stamped on their identically kind and sensible faces, and Tony quite seriously didn't know which he wanted to hug more. He only kissed Pepper, though.

"Pepper, Steve, this is Doctor Stephen Strange. Happy, can you show him to the executive guest suite and ask JARVIS to take especial care of him?" Happy nodded, and JARVIS, who also understood the code for "this is an evil bastard we need to keep under wraps, don't trust him" piped up with an "Of course, sir." The executive suite was originally intended for business guests who might want to engage in a little industrial espionage, but it worked equally well as a very comfortable holding cell. Turning to Steve, Tony said, "I've got Loki in the car. Can you help me bring him in? And Pepper, could you please ask everyone to get together in the living room in half an hour? Has anyone heard from Thor?"

"Not yet," Pepper replied.

"Damn. Okay, once you've given everyone the message to assemble, can you look up Jane Foster's number and give her a call? Come to think of it, she might even have contact information for Loki's place, although it's likely to just be his cell, which of course SHIELD has right now. Anyway, call Jane and tell her we've got Loki, and to let Thor know if she sees him, and his friends if she can."

"Sure," Pepper said, and went off without another word, like the world's greatest sidekick she was. Tony gestured to Steve and the two went out to the car.

"Is this a ploy to get me alone for a private word, or do you really need help with him?" Steve asked. Tony didn't answer, he just opened the back door of the Bentley. "Oh my God." Steve's voice was choked, and Tony nearly reconsidered his decision not to kiss him. For some reason he really needed to hear as many people as possible confirm that this was just not acceptable. "What _happened_ to him?"

"Apparently, my device had side effects. And it wasn't intended for longterm use," Tony replied. "Can you grab his shoulders and I'll take his legs? Be-- " Tony broke off. There was no need to tell Steve to be careful.

There was also no need to help him carry Loki. Tony had kind of forgotten the Captain America super-soldier thing, which might also be the my-strength-is-as-the-strength-of-ten-because-my-heart-is-pure thing. Tony, who was kind of exhausted by now, let Steve carry their guest and just went ahead opening doors for him.

It was closer to forty minutes later when Tony and Steve joined everyone else in the living room. Steve had turned out to be a very competent practical nurse, once he got over his horror, and between the two of them they'd gotten Loki cleaned up, into a pair of Steve's pajama pants, and into bed in a genuine guest room upstairs. Tony didn't have anything to put on the burns and made a mental note to ask Strange's advice on the issue, as soon as he could be sure he wouldn't give in to the urge to suit up and kick him to death.

Loki had given no sign of regaining consciousness as they handled him, but at least with the device off he'd stopped moaning every time you touched him. Tony, his nerves frayed nearly to breaking point, was very grateful for that small mercy. He hoped Loki was aware enough to at least recognize the absence of pain. They left the door ajar, figuring he had been locked up for long enough that the open door would be reassuring when he came to.

It was nearly half-past three in the morning when a bleary-eyed Tony faced the rest of the Avengers, all of them in nightwear, all of them puzzled and ready to be pissed off at him. Well, with the possible exception of Natasha: after getting off to a slightly rocky start Tony was quite prepared to admit was mostly his fault, Pepper and Natasha had become sworn buddies. If Pepper was concerned about something, Natasha was prepared to believe she, at any rate, had a good reason. So Natasha, sitting on the couch between Pepper and Clint, rather hilariously clad in in Hello Kitty pajamas, looked at least ready to listen to him.

"I suppose you're all wondering why I've called you here today," Tony cracked weakly. Nobody smiled. As concisely as possible, Tony explained what had been done to Loki, and where he was right now.

When he finished, there was a momentary silence before Clint, in sweatpants and a Chicago Blackhawks t-shirt, broke it:

"So what does that have to do with us?"

Tony actually gaped, but Natasha and Bruce Banner-- who was wearing a plaid bathrobe, the cord neatly tied in a bow, over a pair of the nerdiest dad-jammies imaginable-- nodded agreement. Clint went on,

"Look, I'm sorry he got hurt, and of course I'm sorry Thor was so worried, but SHIELD makes the executive decisions, right? If they think he's dangerous, they probably have a good reason. I don't see that it's our business to question that."

Tony stared at Clint, and then the other two, unable to think of a single thing to say. Well, actually that wasn't true, he could think of a considerable number of things to say, but none of them would help the situation.

They hadn't seen the cell, he reminded himself. They hadn't _smelled_ it.

In fact, they hadn't seen Loki, either, not the bright-eyed sorcerer who was so excited about different sources of magic, affectionate with his well-meaning supernatural friends, wanted so much for his big brother to approve of him and to make up for the things he'd done in the past; and not the scrawny drained husk currently asleep or unconscious or catatonic upstairs.

Steve, however, had. And Steve, in between fighting crime and adjusting to life in the twenty-first century, spent a considerable amount of his time reading up on his war, what had happened after his crash into the ice, how it all turned out. _All_ of it. Steve was the only American Tony had personally ever met who could tell you all about the campaigns on Sword, Gold, and Juno beaches as well as Utah and Omaha.

He knew positively _everything_ about the war crimes trials.

And so, as Tony desperately sorted through his mind, trying to find words that would get through, make the others _get it,_ Steve spoke up.

"Okay, Clint, so you're saying we should _just follow orders?_ " he demanded. The thing about that phrase was, when uttered by a member of the Greatest Generation, it only ever meant one thing, and everyone knew it. Clint met Steve's eyes but there was a touch of defiance that wouldn't be there if he hadn't suddenly started to feel ashamed of himself.

Steve wasn't finished. Taking a step forward, he went on,

"We should just do as we're told, not question orders, tell ourselves the big bosses are the only ones who get to make the decisions? That we're not really _responsible_ , if we end up committing evil, or looking the other way while someone else does, because we're _just following orders?_ We should tell ourselves we're the 'good guys,' even if we end up behaving exactly the same way the 'bad guys' do, and believe it's true just because we say so?"

Steve looked around the room and now nobody could quite meet his eyes, not even Tony.

"Fuck that shit," Steve said deliberately, and despite the fact he was a former combat soldier it was kind of shocking to hear those words from his mouth. "What makes a 'good guy' isn't that some agency gives you a badge or a piece of paper that says so, that says you can do any damn thing on earth and you still get to keep your credentials. A 'good guy' is supposed to _do good._ A 'good guy' is supposed to _behave better_ than a 'bad guy.' We've got two people upstairs right now, and one of them was imprisoned and tortured just because someone wanted to find out what would _happen,_ and the other one _watched it happen_ and didn't do a single thing to help him. Pop quiz, ladies and gentlemen, which of them is the 'bad guy'?"

Steve looked around the room, inviting argument. Nobody said a word. More softly now, he went on,

"We're superheroes. That means we're supposed to be _heroes._ And one of the things heroes do is, they protect people who can't protect themselves. And whether we think they deserve it or not, we're supposed to make sure justice is served. Not revenge, and certainly not the kind of 'scientific' curiosity that wants to twist someone until he breaks, just to see what his insides look like. We're supposed to protect the helpless, whoever they are, and whoever _from._ If SHIELD is willing to do a thing like this to _anyone_ , that makes the agency a villain. If they're willing to do this to someone _for no reason at all_ , that makes it a _supervillain._ "

Bruce, who had been opening and closing his mouth for a few seconds now, finally got some words out.

"But he _has_ done some pretty evil things."

Steve nodded. "Right. Puente Antigua. We've all read that report, haven't we? The only person hurt in the incident was Thor, and he walked away from it. So you're saying Loki deserves to be _tortured to death_ as punishment for _property damage?_ " Bruce opened his mouth again and Steve went on, "We also all know about Asgard and Jotunheim, which were not in the report. And the reason they're not in the report is, they happened on planets where SHIELD has no jurisdiction. As far as Asgard is concerned, the case seems to be closed. Whatever Loki did there, he's obviously been forgiven for it. That's Asgard's business.

"I completely agree that Jotunheim is a different matter, but please don't insult our intelligence by trying to tell us SHIELD gives one good goddamn about Jotunheim. If they sent a delegation here tomorrow to ask us for _iced tea recipes_ , we'd be assembled to fight them on the spot. They'd never even get to ask whether you start with hot tea or cold brewing.

"I don't know what the Jotun would do to Loki if they could get their hands on him, if they'd execute him or if the fact he's banished really is enough for them, but that's a matter _for the Jotun_ , in _whose jurisdiction the crime was committed._ Not SHIELD, which has never been asked to do anything about it and certainly doesn't give a damn that it happened.

"And just in case you're thinking that maybe he deserves what happened to him just on general principles, because he did do that terrible thing to Jotunheim, let me ask you all-- have any of you ever maybe done something pretty awful that you've never been punished for?"

There was dead silence in the room. The Avengers were put together to make use of talents that members of the team had not always used... productively. In fact, as far as Tony knew, Steve and Pepper were the only two who _didn't_ qualify under that category. In fact, you could argue that, since Pepper knowingly worked for the same weapons firm that had committed the business-as-usual crimes Tony still felt guilty about, maybe Steve was all alone. And, knowing Steve, who was a soldier and who kept a pretty close eye on himself, maybe he felt guilty about something, too.

Steve looked around again. "And would it be justice if someone, some supervillain, kidnapped you and tortured you for the fun of it, would it be justice just because you had done some other completely unrelated thing the supervillain didn't care about anyway? The point of justice is, it's not supposed to be random. If SHIELD wants to punish Loki for what he did to Jotunheim, the thing to do is arrest him and extradite him to Jotunheim. Which, as you notice, they did not do. The Jotun don't know one thing about where Loki is and what's happening to him, and they haven't asked SHIELD to step in.

"No. SHIELD did this because SHIELD wanted to know what Tony's device, which he told them had not been properly tested, which he told them might have side effects, would do to a live magic carrier. And when they _found out_ what it would do, they didn't stop doing it. They didn't take it off and apologize and let Loki go. They left him dying by inches, alone in filth, because they _didn't care what happened to him_ , because he wasn't important to them, his rights weren't important to them. His _brother_ , who is out of his mind with worry, who is part of our team, who's done good work for SHIELD because he thinks what SHIELD is supposed to stand for matters-- his _brother_ didn't matter to SHIELD either.

"And that's all supposed to be _okay?_ " Steve's voice rose incredulously.

There was silence. Then,

"I hadn't thought about it quite like that," Clint muttered. Bruce and Natasha muttered equally uncomfortably. Steve looked around the room, then nodded and sat down, waiting for Tony to go on.

Tony, his heart hammering, stepped forward again.

"Okay. I need to go into the office and make sure all the files related to the inhibitor project are destroyed. Pepper, can you make arrangements for the Scottish lodge to be opened? On the quiet, please, we need to keep a low profile. Steve, how about you come with me and the rest of you start getting your stuff together. We're going to have to get out of here, and fast."

" _All_ of us?" Bruce asked incredulously.

Tony smiled grimly. "Yes. I don't think any of us want SHIELD to start asking us questions about each other's whereabouts. There's no guarantee they'll stop if we ask them nicely."

~oOo~

Tony's plan involved getting everyone out of the country, to a hunting lodge his family owned in Scotland. He was pretty sure SHIELD didn't know about the place-- the deed was a matter of some obscurity, buried in shadow companies, and his trips there, on the rare occasions he really wanted to get away from it all, had always been kept very quiet. Getting there was not much of an issue, except that Loki had no documents and they had to wait for Thor, so Tony's current plan was to (a) get rid of all traces of the inhibitor project, so SHIELD would find it as difficult as possible to reproduce the technology, (b) fake up a passport for Loki, and possibly Strange, that would stand up to scrutiny, and (c) find Thor.

Based on the shape Loki was in when he was carried upstairs, Tony had figured his guest waking up any time soon was the least of his worries.

Tony had been wrong before.

Loki's return to consciousness happened all at once, like a fall into cold water. He gasped and jerked and then froze, listening for the sound of an enemy nearby. He was non-specific about what he felt would constitute "an enemy."

When he was sure he was alone, Loki slowly sat up, weak and rather dizzy, but no longer experiencing the agony that had tormented him for as long as he could now remember. The specific pains from the burns on his throat, wrists, chest and ankles were bearable largely because they _were_ specific: at least he could direct his mind elsewhere now the pain was not all-encompassing.

He was no longer in the cell. Thinking at first he might be dreaming, he twisted his left wrist in his right hand, hard enough that the pain from his charred skin made tears start up in his eyes. The room did not change. It looked like an ordinary, though very comfortable, guest bedroom: white linens and shining dark furniture, windows with light beginning to come through from outside.

Sheet fisted in his hands, Loki looked around in an agony of fear. Why had he been brought here? What did they want of him? The only answer he could imagine was that he was being given a chance to rest before they started the torture all over again. He had obviously weakened to the point that his suffering was no longer interesting to his captors.

If he had thought the intention was simply to kill him, he would have been less afraid. He would not let them imprison him in the collar again. He couldn't, he would end in going mad. Again. He would go mad, and die in madness. He could not let that happen.

Taking stock of the situation, he realized his clothes had been changed, the stinking blue things for loose trousers. He was clean, was not tied or restrained in any way. He could think of no reason for his captors to have done this, at least no reason that was not sinister. The cell was bad enough, the cell and the collar and the pain. But this... taunting... had to mean something really terrible was planned for him. He did not want to even imagine what it might be.

Loki carefully slid his legs over the side of the bed, pushed himself to his feet, caught his balance. He was weak, but not so weak he could not at least try to defend himself.

The door was open, and Loki was very careful to stay away from it as he walked soft-footed to the window. There was no telling what might be outside that door.

The window overlooked a sheer cliff down to... water. Big water. For the moment he was unable to produce the word for that much water. No matter: he would be unable, even if he could break the window, to climb down the side of the building and the cliff. He reached inside himself for magic and felt only a weak flutter, like a small winged creature dying in his chest. His magic was not dead, not quite, but badly injured. He could get no help from it.

The window being an impossibility, Loki turned reluctantly toward that obvious trap, the open door, crept toward it with his heart in his mouth. As he passed a... storage, for clothing... he noticed a gray thing lying on it, a sort of soft shirt, fuzzy inside, folded, on top. Loki picked it up. It was clean, and did not have to be pulled on over his head, with painful results to his burned chest. There were... like teeth, on each side, down the front. He seemed to remember, the teeth were supposed to hold each other, keep the shirt closed, but he could not for the moment remember how. He put it on anyway, and turned in terror toward the door.

He waited, listened, tried to feel for the presence of anyone outside the door. Once again, magic fluttered uselessly in his chest. Loki reached up instinctively, as if to comfort it, his hand shying away before it touched the circular burn over his heart. He crept closer to the door, rested his fingertips against the wood surface, then gently curled them around the knob and pulled it quietly open.

Nothing awful happened. He peered out into the hallway, saw no one, took a deep breath and stepped through the door. He could not understand why the door was unlocked, why there were no guards, but he expected them to appear at any moment, it was obviously a trap but he had no choice but to attempt it.

He was at the top of a staircase when a door opened behind him and a man stepped out. Not tall, curly dark hair, startled-looking. The other man froze, and Loki bolted down the stairs. Behind him, he heard the man shout something Loki could not quite understand, he still had trouble making sense of words, but he did know that meant there were others here, the man was calling to the others to catch him.

He reached the bottom of the stairs, did not see a door, a way out, the building was too _big,_ he glanced back, saw the curly-haired man coming down the stairs after him and bolted in a random direction. There was a _voice_ , coming from nowhere, someone he could not see helping them chase him, he came to a corner and a man and a woman, from nowhere, right in front of him.

He had never seen them before, the woman small, like Jane, like Jane--red hair, black clothing, the man in black, he did not know them, he could not remember words anymore, not always, but he skidded to a halt as they blocked his path and he knew the word for them: _assassin._

A few days before he might almost have welcomed them, might have been relieved, but he was awake, he was free, his magic was crippled but he was alive and he wanted, he _wanted_ to stay that way. He spun to run back the way he had come and the curly-haired man was there, someone grabbed at him from behind, the man in black, and Loki turned, went with the other's momentum and slipped his hold, out of the gray shirt, left it in the man's hands. At the same time the woman caught hold of his arm and Loki threw her across the hall, into the second man, the one with the curly hair, and both of them fell.

They were blocking the hall so he went back the other way, the man in black was there, Loki had to get past him or past the others, blocked both ways, the man put his hands up and said, "Calm down man, we don't want to hurt you." Loki understood that, it was suddenly perfectly clear, and it was not the same as "we're not going to hurt you," not the same thing at all, " _but_ \-- " was there to be heard, "we don't want to _but_ we will if we have to," or even, "that was a lie, we actually _do_ want to hurt you, and this is our excuse."

Loki paused, glanced back at the man and woman behind him, raised his own hands as if in surrender. The man in black stepped forward, lowering his hands, saying something Loki didn't catch, took another step forward and Loki went into him raising his arm, caught him in the throat with an elbow and the man went down.

Loki stumbled over him and the woman landed on his back trying to get an arm around his throat, he rolled, trying to slip his head free, to throw her off, it almost worked, he clawed at her arm, snapped his head back and felt his own skull connect with her head, stars in his vision but the arm loosened and he was scrambling to his feet when someone else, the man in black again or the man with the curly hair, landed on him, twisted his right arm behind his back, hand up between his own shoulderblades.

"Calm _down_ ," a voice said, as if he could just surrender, as if the collar and madness were an option, were _possible_ , but he made himself quiet down, made himself go still, the man leaned forward, a little off-balance and Loki started violently to his feet but the man was not taken by surprise, at least not enough to relax his grip, he held on and pain lanced through Loki's shoulder. Loki heard himself scream as he stumbled forward, felt something tear at the top of his right arm, turned back into the man in black and grabbed him by the throat again, dug his fingers into the man's windpipe as his own vision went gray, it was one or the other of them and he knew he was about to faint when the grip on his arm loosened and he threw the man in black toward the other two, heard them tumble and he spun back, clear path now, and ran.

Heart thumping, clutching his right arm to his side, he made it down the hall, door, there was a door, light outside, the voice telling him to stop but nobody behind him, not yet, he reached the door--

Locked. Loki almost wailed, rattled the handle uselessly, looked around for something to break the door, or another way out--

And the door was opened by someone on the other side, swung inward toward him, it was a woman, bright hair, frightened by him, nearly as frightened as he was, she screamed and froze in the doorway and Loki found a word, _harmless_ , slipped sideways past her and ran out of the house.

The woman stepped out of his way with a little shriek, and halfway across the grass he looked back to see her _run into the house._ Loki stopped, breathing harshly in panic, and a brief but savage battle was fought between his fear of what the assassins would do to him if he went back, and his fear of what they might do to that woman if he didn't.

_No, no, nonono._

Sobbing in terror and frustration, Loki ran back toward the house.

~oOo~

Tony and Steve got back to the house just as things were calming down, as Clint was looking for his cell phone to call Tony and update him. They walked into the house to find Clint, Natasha, and Bruce looking like they'd just lost a fight with the minions of Dr. Doom, Dr. Strange checking Natasha's pupils while she held a bag of frozen peas to her bleeding nose.

"What _happened?_ " Tony demanded, heart in his throat. If SHIELD had sent a squad to get Loki back, why hadn't the others been arrested?

Clint, considerably bruised and with what looked like finger marks on his throat, grinned sardonically.

"Loki woke up."

At Tony's expression of incomprehension, Strange offered an explanation.

"It's most interesting," he reported. "There was no telling how, or even if, his emotional range would recover, but it appears to be happening already. The only problem at the moment is, all he's gotten back so far is fear. That's why you couldn't reason with him," he addressed Clint directly, "all he can feel right now is that single emotion. It's the only reaction he's capable of producing, not to mention his language functions are still so impaired that he probably couldn't understand you, even if he could have believed you."

Tony just barely did not clutch his head. "Oh, that's just wonderful."

Strange shrugged. "I agree, it would have been easier on everyone if the first emotion that returned was joy, or perhaps trust, but under the circumstances it's understandable that didn't happen. And it could have been worse. Imagine if he'd woken up feeling nothing but anger, or even hatred."

"That could have been messy, all right," Natasha agreed, her voice muffled behind the frozen peas.

"Where is he?" Steve asked.

"Back in the guest room," Bruce, who was nursing a black eye to go with the two Natasha was going to have, explained. "We had to cuff him to the bed frame, we'll let him loose as soon as he calms down, but he looked like he really might try to go out the window or something and we were pretty sure the fall would kill him."

"It took all four of you to overpower one half-dead guy?" Steve demanded.

"Strange wasn't involved," Clint said. "Three of us. And a taser. We finally found the taser, when Loki came back." At the expressions on Steve and Tony's faces, Clint explained, "He got away from us the first time, got out of the house when Pepper came in, I don't even want to think where he would have ended up if he'd just kept running, but for some reason he came back in after Pepper."

"He _came after Pepper?_ " Tony demanded, a terrible chill settling all around the arc reactor in his chest, where his heart was rumoured to be.

"Not like that," Bruce said hastily.

"He seemed to think she was in danger or something," Natasha explained, lifting the frozen peas off her face to let Clint look at the damage.

"Yeah," Bruce went on. "Pepper came running in to see where we were, and all of a sudden he was right there behind her, got between us and her. He still can't talk straight but he obviously wanted her to escape while he held us off. I guess it makes sense, in a way: he obviously believed we were dangerous, so I guess he thought we were a danger to her, too."

"Oh," Tony said weakly.

"So, fear and possibly the beginnings of altruism," Strange said brightly, checking his pockets for his notebook. "And apparently he was able to perceive a distinction between Miss Potts and these three. That's very interesting."

Tony decided to beat him to death later, after he'd heard the rest of the story.

"By then he was pretty worn out, I guess he'd used up most of his strength getting away from us in the first place, and I remembered the taser in the front hall cabinet, and we were able to subdue him," Bruce explained.

Steve looked at him thoughtfully. "And you stayed in this... shape, the whole time?"

Bruce looked down at himself, his geeky un-Hulked-out self, and shrugged. "I guess I couldn't get angry at someone as scared as he was. He kept making this awful little gasping noise, like his breath was stuck and he was choking on it."

"Three of you," Steve repeated. Clint looked annoyed.

"Look, man, we were at a bit of a disadvantage, since we were actually trying not to hurt him."

"You dislocated his shoulder," Natasha reminded him.

"I didn't expect him to just pull through the hold like that," Clint snapped. "Nobody does that. I also didn't expect-- Thor keeps talking about his intellectual little brother, the guy who's not so much of a fighter. I never stopped to think, Thor meant _by his standards._ Asgard's. Apparently, by Earth standards-- "

"Fucking ninja," Natasha said. Clint nodded. Natasha addressed Steve: "You keep pointing out it was three against one. What he did to us, that was momentum and timing, way more than strength. I've fought guys a lot stronger than he was, and it's not that hard to beat them if they don't know what they're doing, or they're afraid of you hurting them. It's different with someone who actually knows how to fight hand-to-hand, especially if they accept getting hurt as the price you pay. He's obviously had a lot of training, and this wasn't his first scrap. It's lucky for us he _wasn't_ at full strength: if he was, he probably would have killed us."

Bruce shook his head. "No, I'm pretty sure he didn't want to hurt us any more than we wanted to hurt him. Look at the way he let go of Clint, as soon as Clint lost his grip on his arm. He just wanted to get away from us."

Natasha, the frozen peas back on her nose, nodded. "Anyway, he's upstairs right now. Being awfully quiet, which I guess makes sense: it's not like he's going to yell for help in a house full of people he thinks want to kill him. Pepper and JARVIS are trying to calm him down-- "

"That won't happen until he gets more of his emotional range back," Strange piped up helpfully.

Natasha ignored him. "We told Pepper to stay in the doorway, JARVIS will let us know if he gets loose again, and she's to just duck out and lock the door behind her if anything happens. I don't see what he can do, with only one working arm, but you never know."

"Gritty little bastard," Clint remarked admiringly.

"Not so little," Natasha reminded him.

"You know what I mean," Clint shrugged. "Gritty long skinny bastard, if you prefer."

"Yeah," Natasha agreed, and turned to Tony. "If SHIELD wants him, they're going to have to come through us to get him."

Clint grunted in agreement, and Tony made a mental note: apparently, the way to win the hearts of Black Widow and Hawkeye was to give a really game account of yourself in a fight with them. Even Bruce looked like he was of the same mind. Imagine Thanksgiving at their houses. Although, really, whatever worked...

Conscious of having traded one problem-- three reluctant team members-- for another-- an hysterical rescuee who didn't yet realize he had been rescued-- Tony shrugged at Steve and started to head upstairs to check on the situation, and incidentally Pepper.

And then his cell phone rang.


	4. Chapter 4

Annie met George and Mitchell as they left the hospital after their shift, and the three of them went for groceries. Ordinarily, Annie wouldn't have joined them, since the boys had the list and it wasn't as if she could carry anything: disembodied grocery sacks floating about would draw all kinds of the wrong attention from the local humans.

She met them because she was lonely and worried, the same as they were, because having apparently lost one housemate the other three had an instinct to cling to each other. The boys certainly understood her feelings, especially the helplessness of having no idea what had happened to Loki or where to look for him. Thor's latest visit, instead of encouraging them, had just emphasized the apparent hopelessness of the situation: if Thor couldn't find him, if _Heimdall_ couldn't, they had to ask themselves whether he was still out there to be found. After six weeks, they were starting to realize they had to face the fact Loki might really be gone, and they might never know what had happened to him.

"I could ask Geoff if any of the vampires has heard anything," Mitchell offered listlessly, touching off the latest round of an ongoing argument. Mitchell's point was that, the rhinoceros charms having failed, the vampires knew Loki was missing anyway, and one of them might know something useful. Geoff, who had looked like a pimply-faced teenager since George VI was crowned, could even be said to owe Loki a favour, since Loki had declined to kill him in the altercation a few months back that had left the local vampires leaderless.

George and Annie were generally patient with Mitchell's wistful tendency to ignore the fact, which they all knew from first-hand experience, that vampires were pretty much all arseholes, but they knew the last thing they should do was openly admit Loki was really gone. Geoff was really not such a bad sort, as vampires went, but neither George nor Annie, and probably not Mitchell either, expected him to feel much actual gratitude toward Loki for sparing his life, even though the confrontation between the vampires and Loki had been entirely the vampires' fault.

So far, no leader as ambitious, as charismatic, or as spiteful as Herrick had stepped up to take the fallen captain's place. The vampires' awareness of the charms' breakdown had not, so far, translated into attacks on schoolchildren or hospital patients. George and Annie both thought the best idea was to leave well enough alone. Vampires survived by hiding anyway, which ruled out little kids as appropriate victims-- they might be easy targets themselves, but public hysteria would set in almost instantaneously if anything started happening to them, and there was no telling where that would lead. Loki had only set the charm in the first place because he knew Herrick was pissed off at him, maybe enough to attack the school out of sheer general-bastardness. He'd added the spell on the hospital where Mitchell worked on the same principle, but even before Herrick's death the vampires had never engaged in much more than posturing, at least with regard to the school.

In fact, the vampires actually might even think Loki had taken the charms down himself, in recognition of the fact that, with Herrick gone, only the incurably stupid would go after children. George and Annie figured the best course was to let the vampires draw their own conclusions, but leave enough doubt to make them hesitant to target anything or anyone to whom Loki had extended his protection.

George had just opened his mouth to make that argument, again, when Annie, who was looking ahead toward the house, clutched his arm.

"I didn't leave a light on," she announced. "Someone's in the house."

For one wonderful second all three of them let themselves imagine it might be Loki, and then the hope died under the weight of its sheer unlikeliness. Mitchell, who had just now been the spokesvampire for total fantasy, put his finger directly on the problem:

"The light's in George's room. And it's moving."

All three exchanged frightened looks. Loki would have no reason to be snooping in George's room, and even if he was in there looking for a book or something, there was no reason for him to be using an electric torch instead of the overhead light.

"Vampires?" George suggested.

Mitchell shrugged. "Vampires wouldn't need a torch. Our night vision is pretty good."

Annie's mouth tightened. "Humans. Things aren't bad enough already, without us getting burgled. Probably lucky we don't have anything worth stealing."

George's shoulders twitched. "Perhaps they're not burglars. Perhaps... they have something to do with whatever happened to Loki." Mitchell and Annie looked at each other, then at George, who made a flustered gesture. "I don't know what made me think of that."

"You could be right," Mitchell replied, looking worriedly at the house and the light.

Annie raised her chin defiantly. "I'm going to go find out."

"No," George said.

"Bad idea," Mitchell agreed.

"What is there to be worried about? I'm already dead," Annie pointed out. "You two wait here." And she vanished.

"Annie-- " Mitchell protested, too late.

"She's right, though," George said. "About there not being much a human could do to her. They generally can't even see her."

"I know," Mitchell muttered. "I just-- "

"Yeah," George agreed.

Annie arrived in the front room of their house, found it empty and dark. She stood still for a moment, listening. There was someone upstairs, all right, she could hear them moving around. Annie started toward the staircase, began quietly to climb toward the first floor. By the time she got to the turn in the stairs she was deeply regretting the impulse that had brought her here, was chanting, "I'm already dead, I'm already dead" as a comforting mantra as she moved about her quiet and unaccountably creepy home.

She got to the top of the stairs just as two dark-suited figures were coming down. For one terrible second she thought the two men, in their black suits and dark ties, were vampires after all, that they would see her. And then, for another even worse one, she thought one of them, clean-shaven and with his dark hair slicked back, not very tall, was Agent Coulson. It wasn't that Agent Coulson would catch her, he couldn't see her, but she liked him, thought he liked them as well, the time they'd had that adventure together. She didn't want to find Coulson rummaging through their belongings, spying on them.

The two men went down the stairs, passing so close she could smell cigarette smoke on the one who looked like Coulson. Coulson, she remembered with relief, did not smoke. And on closer inspection the resemblance faded. He was simply a neat-looking man in a dark suit.

Emboldened by the fact they had walked right by her, Annie followed them partway down, then sat on the steps at the turn and listened while one of them brought out his mobile phone, entered a number, and then spoke in an American accent:

"Cray here. No sign he's come back here, we've been all through the house... Yeah. If you want to be sure, we can pick up the roommates and bring them in. They should be home from work any time now, we'll wait for them." The man paused, looked up at his companion. "Did you just... feel something?" Annie didn't hear that part, because Annie had vanished again.

Annie reappeared in the street, next to George and Mitchell, startling them both so that Mitchell nearly dropped his sack of groceries.

"We need to get out of here," she said categorically, grabbing them each by an arm and pushing them back along the street.

"Where are we going?" George asked, trying to wriggle free.

"No idea. But we can't go home."

The three friends retreated down the street to hide in an alley a few blocks away, Annie talking nineteen to the dozen to catch them up.

"The 'he' that man was talking about has to be Loki," she summed up. "Whoever they are, they must have had him and he escaped. And they were planning to kidnap us-- or at any rate you two-- to see whether you know where he is."

"Which means he can't come back here," Mitchell pointed out. "We need to find him before he tries and gets caught again. Whoever those guys are, they might decide to watch the house."

"They looked like Agent Coulson," Annie blurted. At the expressions of dismay on the boys' faces, she added hastily, "It wasn't really him, definitely not, but they were wearing those same black suits and the one I heard speaking had an American accent."

"That's crazy," George whispered. "Why would SHIELD want to kidnap Loki?"

"It wouldn't be the first time," Annie pointed out bitterly.

"That was a misunderstanding," Mitchell reminded her uneasily. Annie continued to look grim: having been one of the witnesses to Iron Man arresting-- as far as Annie was concerned, _abducting_ \-- Loki from the schoolyard some months back, she had never entirely forgiven the organization that ordered it, even though she'd eventually decided she liked Tony Stark, Coulson, and even the terrifying Nick Fury.

"Well, whatever's going on, we need to let Thor know," George said, trying to create order out of the chaos of the moment. "And since Thor went to find out whether Sif and the others have any news, he'll be travelling via the Bifrost, which means he'll be speaking to Heimdall sooner or later. Right?" When the other two nodded, George looked at the sky, cleared his throat nervously, and said in a small voice, "Um, Heimdall? I don’t know if you can hear me, but if you see Thor, can you please tell him we need to speak to him?"

"How's he going to find us?" Annie protested. " _We_ don't even know where we're going to be."

"Heimdall can see everything, remember?" George hissed at her, as if Heimdall, if he could hear George at all, could not hear him now. "He can tell Thor where we've gone."

"Apparently he can't see Loki," Annie muttered.

Mitchell was pulling his mobile phone out of his pocket. "I think we had also better call Tony Stark, just in case. He might have some ideas."

~oOo~

Tony paused at the foot of the stairs as his cell phone rang. He considered ignoring it, then figured he'd better look at the number at least: if it was SHIELD, that meant they were out of time, and if it was Coulson he might be trying to warn them about an impending bust. He yanked the phone out of his pocket and looked at the screen. The number was unfamiliar, with an overseas exchange, but the security on Stark Industries' network was such that his number didn't get called by telemarketers. Whoever was on the line had his number for a reason. He pressed the "receive" button.

"Stark," he said.

"Mitchell," said an Irish voice in his ear. "Thor gave us your number in case we needed to get hold of him. Is he with you?"

"No, and actually, I was going to try to get in touch with you. We've got Loki here at the Avengers' mansion, he's not in good shape but we think he'll be okay, and we're getting out of here. If anyone from SHIELD shows up at your end, hide or something. They're the ones who were holding him."

"Shit," Mitchell said, heartfelt, and then poured out a story about black-suited intruders in the house, Annie investigating, the three currently hiding down the street.

"Okay," Tony said, trying to keep up with the situation. Just because SHIELD was looking for Loki at home didn't mean they weren't also going to search for him in the US. Time was about to run out. "We're going to hide out at a place I have in north Scotland. I'd send someone to pick you up, but it might draw attention. Don't take a car, it's too easy to track one. There's a railway station at Thurso, which is about as close as you can get to where we'll be. Take a train there, call me when you arrive, and we'll pick you up, okay?"

"Okay," Mitchell agreed without hesitation. One thing Tony liked about the vampire was his ability to just get on with things and let the explanations follow later. There was a pause and some muffled conversation away from the receiver, then Mitchell went on, "Give Loki a hug from all of us and tell him we'll see him soon. Thank you for looking after him."

"Least I could do," Tony muttered, ended the call, and stood looking up the stairs for a moment. The hug was probably going to have to wait for a bit.

He jogged up the stairs, calling to Pepper. Her voice in response sounded calm, unruffled, totally fine. As worried as Tony was about Loki, he still took a moment to be relieved that Pepper was all right.

He arrived at the open door of the guest room and found Pepper sitting on the floor, in lotus position, just inside. She looked perfectly tranquil, but she also looked like she was working on it.

Loki, who had been sitting back against the headboard in a posture that echoed Pepper's, jerked alert at the sight of Tony, eyes wide and teeth practically bared. He didn't waste energy tugging uselessly at the handcuff on his left wrist, but he shifted his posture enough that, if Tony attacked him, he'd have a chance of fending him off with his feet. That was pretty much the only option open to him, aside of course from biting, which judging by his expression went without saying: he was cuffed to the headboard by his wrapped-up left wrist, and his right arm was bound to his side in an effort to protect the recently-reduced dislocated right shoulder. It was obvious that Bruce, Clint and Natasha had done their best to minimize the harm they'd had to do, but it was equally obvious Loki's poor scrambled brains were in no state to appreciate that fact.

"Sit down and don't make any sudden moves," Pepper said quietly. Tony complied, ending up on the floor in an attitude far less graceful than Pepper's. Avoiding eye contact, he watched via his peripheral vision as Loki's defensive-threat posture gradually quieted down. Meanwhile, Pepper brought him up to date in an even, carefully unthreatening tone. "I've asked JARVIS not to speak up unless it's a real emergency: Loki gets very alarmed by the whole disembodied-voice-from-nowhere thing. He seemed to be getting better these last ten minutes or so, until-- "

"Until I showed up," Tony said wryly.

Pepper smiled. "I think he'd have reacted the same way to anyone."

Tony wasn't so sure-- he had no idea whether Loki remembered much in his current state, but if he did it was possible he recalled Iron Man electrocuting him on a school playground and then waking up in his first set of SHIELD restraints.

If Tony had been Loki, he'd have tried to bite himself, too.

Tony sat next to Pepper for about twenty minutes, talking in a normal conversational tone, hoping to impress upon Loki that he meant no harm. He had very little success: Loki still reacted fearfully whenever Tony shifted position or altered his tone. He felt very slightly better when Steve stuck his head in and got exactly the same reaction, but he didn't say so. By the end of the twenty minutes, Tony was ashamed to realize he was getting impatient-- he knew, honestly, that Loki wasn't in this state just to make his life difficult, but the total lack of progress was beginning to scare him.

Tony wasn't used to being out of ideas, but at the moment the question of how, if Thor didn't show up soon and Loki didn't calm down, they were going to get him into an airplane and across both a continent and an ocean without something disastrous happening, seemed insurmountable. He didn't even know whether tranquilizers would work on someone with Loki's mixture of Aesir, Jotun, and magic-- although come to think of it, magic seemed to be off the table for the moment. Maybe Dr. Strange, who seemed in no hurry to be set free, would have a useful idea. Weirder things had happened.

JARVIS had been quiet all this time, but now he spoke up:

"Sir, Thor has just arrived."

"Pepper, can you hold the fort for a few minutes?" Tony asked quietly. "Steve, maybe you can help me explain things."

"I'll be right here," Pepper said pleasantly.

"We'll be right back," Steve promised. The two men got to their feet, Loki recoiled, and Tony tried to fight the irrational but growing urge to take it personally.

"For God's sake, calm _down_ ," he blurted, and assumed it was the frustration in his tone that made Loki react as if he'd uttered a threat. (Much later, after he and Clint had a chance to speak in more detail about the circumstances surrounding Loki's attempted escape and recapture, especially the part where his shoulder was dislocated, Tony felt like a _real_ shit.) Steve put a hand on Tony's shoulder.

"Come on."

Halfway down the stairs, they met Thor coming up, face lit up like a sunrise.

"Natasha tells me you have found Loki," he said.

"Um, yes," Tony replied, wondering whether Thor had even noticed Natasha's black eyes, and also how on earth he was going to explain things. _Sorry, man, we broke your brother_?

Well, it was a place to start.

"Look, Thor, I don't know how much those guys told you, but Loki is not in good shape right now. He seems to have been in SHIELD custody this whole time, and they've been torturing him with the inhibitor device they took from me a few weeks ago. You remember I said it hadn't been tested properly yet? Well, they seem to have elected Loki their subject."

" _SHIELD_ did this?" Thor repeated, his expression stunned. "Why would-- ?"

"Apparently, they wanted to see what would happen," Tony said bluntly. Thor, his expression darkening ominously, opened his mouth, and Tony raised his hands. "I know, I know. We've got to do something about SHIELD, and we will, but Loki needs you right now, okay? He is really, seriously freaked out, he doesn't seem to be able to understand most of what's said to him, and he's scared to death of all of us."

"Where is he?" Thor asked, making a visible effort to control his temper, good sense rapidly losing the battle with betrayal and anger. And not that Tony did not _completely_ understand where Thor was coming from, but this was just not the time.

Steve casually placed himself up the staircase from Thor, blocking his path, and said quietly,

"He's upstairs in a guest room, but you should know that whatever they did to him has affected him very badly. He's not rational right now. He tried to take off on us earlier and we had to handcuff him for his own safety." Leave it to Steve to say "we" when he had nothing whatsoever to do with the action.

Looking at Thor's face, Tony really expected a bolt of lightning to split open the ceiling and incinerate him and Steve on the spot.

" _'Handcuff,'_ " Loki's big brother repeated. "You have him shackled like a criminal?"

"Just until he calms down," Steve replied. "You may have noticed Bruce, Clint, and Natasha look like they've been hit by a truck. That was Loki. He doesn't seem to realize he's safe yet."

"Indeed. And, of course, chaining him like an animal will do a great deal to reassure him," Thor said. It seemed to Tony that Thor had gotten a great deal more sarcastic since they'd first met. How he'd managed to avoid learning sarcasm in nine hundred or so years of being Loki's brother, Tony didn't know, but he liked to think he, Tony Stark, had something to do with this recent development.

Thor brushed past Steve to go up the stairs, and Steve let him: one of the other last things they needed right now was a brawl between Avengers.

Tony was right behind Thor when he walked into the guest room, and that was when Tony realized this wasn't going to turn out the way he'd been assuming. He'd worried about what they'd do with Loki if Thor didn't show up before they had to run for it, wondered how they'd control him for transport, how they'd calm him down so they didn't end up doing him as much harm in the rescue as SHIELD had done in the imprisonment. All his worries, however, were based on the fear that Thor would stay away too long. He'd believed implicitly that when Thor showed up, everything was going to be fine.

There were, of course, reasons for Tony's faith, chief among them the way Loki had reacted to Thor's arrival during the previous misunderstanding back in England. Loki had been trussed up in restraints on the helicarrier while Tony played good cop to Fury's bad cop. In spite of his situation, Loki had given both of them considerable lip, which Tony kind of admired him for. He hadn't realized Loki was actually scared until Thor came busting in to the rescue, when, just for a second, an expression of unguarded, almost childlike, relief had swept over the younger brother's face. If Tony had blinked he would have missed it, but it was obvious then that Loki hadn't been asking for Thor just to relieve himself from the inconvenience of imprisonment. Apparently, he actually had the little brother's faith that when his big brother showed up, everything would be all right.

And Tony had unconsciously just assumed that was going to happen again, that Thor would walk in and Loki would immediately calm down and be amenable to reason and everything would be rainbows and sunshine.

Instead, the sight of the huge caped figure in the doorway nearly sent Loki right through the wall behind him. Steve actually reached out to grab at Thor's cape, to stop him from going any closer, but Thor didn't need a warning. He stopped in the middle of the room, assessing the situation.

"His right arm," he said finally. "Was that SHIELD?"

"No," Tony replied. "Sorry."

"He got that the same place the other three got all those bumps and bruises," Steve added.

Thor almost smiled. "My brother is, as you would say, tougher than he looks." Serious again, Thor took a cautious step forward. Loki practically hissed at him, and Thor came to a halt. "The shackle. It requires a key to unlock it?"

"Yes," Tony said, "but-- "

"I would have it," Thor said calmly.

"Thor, I don't think-- " Steve began.

Thor, moving slowly and smoothly, turned his head to make eye contact. "It will not benefit my brother if I must resort to smashing things to free him. Get me the key. Now."

Pepper, who was standing just inside the door, spoke up. "I'll be right back."

"Thank you," Thor said to her retreating back. To Steve and Tony, he said, "You will be so kind as to stand near the door." It was not a request.

"Thor, if you turn him loose, he's going to try to escape," Tony tried again. "And it won't do him any good if we have to tackle him."

"That will not happen," Thor said serenely. Tony wanted to hit him over the head with his own hammer. Before he could attempt anything rash, Pepper reappeared. Thor smiled at her. "You have it? Good. I would ask your assistance, Miss Potts."

" _Pepper_ is not going one step closer than she is already," Tony announced.

"What kind of help do you need?" Pepper asked practically, as though Tony hadn't spoken.

"I am going to hold my brother still and, if you agree, you will unlock that device and then retreat toward the door. I believe your presence will frighten him less. I also do not believe he would ever hurt you, but I will not let go of him until you are at a safe distance."

"Please, Thor, stop and think about this. Wait until he calms down," Tony pleaded.

Thor sighed and replied patiently, "He is not going to calm down. Not like this. Miss Potts?"

"Just tell me when you want me to move," Pepper replied. Thor smiled at her again, then turned toward the figure on the bed.

"Loki, little brother, I do not know whether you can understand me, but I am very sorry to have to frighten you like this," he said gently, and then started to move forward.

The thing Tony sometimes forgot about Thor was, he wasn't just big. When he needed to be, he was also almost unbelievably quick. To begin with he simply walked quietly toward Loki, who recoiled as far as he could, but at a certain point he was simply too close and Loki's limited self-control failed him. He went scrambling sideways, yanking at the handcuff as if he could smash all the bones in his wrist and hand and pull free that way. Thor, in a movement too smooth to be called a lunge, leaned forward and wrapped his left arm around Loki's torso, gathering him close, the hand on the back of his head pressing Loki's face against Thor's shoulder. He then enveloped his brother's left hand in his own right so he couldn't claw, and used his body to block any efforts to kick in the direction Pepper would be coming from.

"Miss Potts?" Thor requested, his voice calm and perfectly level. Pepper was already moving forward, found the keyhole in the cuff and unlocked it. "Thank you," said Thor as the shackle popped free, and Pepper retreated as Thor continued to hold onto his wriggling, panicking brother. As soon as she was back at the doorway, he set Loki down and stepped backward.

At which point Loki did pretty much exactly what Tony was afraid he was going to: blindly scrambled off the bed, yelping as he rolled over his injured shoulder, and, in an apparent effort to put as much distance as he could between himself and the others, bolted into the corner of the room farthest from the door and froze there. He looked at the others out of wide eyes and made the noise Bruce had referred to, the little tearing gasp that sounded like his lungs had stopped working.

But then he just stood there, moving his left hand aimlessly, fingers opening and closing, as if unable to believe the cuff was gone. Thor stayed where he was, too, blocking Loki's path to the door, but also, at least from Loki's apparent point of view, preventing any of the people at the door from getting at Loki. The two brothers stood looking at one another.

After a minute or two, Tony realized Loki's breathing had deepened and slowed down. His hand stopped fluttering. His shoulders looked less tightly stretched.

And at this point, Thor spoke.

"Is that better, my brother?" Loki didn't answer, but when he looked at Thor, his eyes appeared to focus. He tensed again when Thor began to move, but settled down when all Thor did was walk around the end of the bed and sit on the edge of it. Still in the same gentle tone he'd been using all along, he said, "No one else is going to hurt you, Loki. I will not permit it. You are safe now."

After the day he'd had, no one could have blamed Loki for continuing skepticism. However, Loki's eyes shifted from the empty handcuff still locked to the headboard, to his own wrist, and back to Thor's face. Thor smiled, patted the bed beside him, and left his hand stretched out on the comforter, as if he had forgotten it was there. Slowly and smoothly, he turned his head to look at the others.

"You may as well leave us. This may take some time, and you have preparations to make if we are to defend ourselves from SHIELD."

"I was actually thinking more in terms of fleeing and hiding ourselves from SHIELD, at least to begin with," Tony admitted.

Thor frowned thoughtfully. "That may be wise, at least for now. Certainly my brother is in no condition to assist us at the moment."

Steve spoke up, in a tone of quiet misery. "We seem to have made all the wrong decisions, as far as Loki's concerned. I'm really sorry."

"I am sure he will forgive you, once he is himself again. He just… he does not like to be confined. I very nearly gave in to the urge to hold him a moment ago, but in his current state it would not have been a kindness to do such a thing against his will." Thor smiled understandingly. "He will be grateful to you all."

"I hope so," Steve murmured, and he, Pepper, and Tony retreated as Thor turned back to his brother.

~oOo~

At first sight, the giant figure in the doorway had frightened Loki right out of his limited ability to think. When the huge man set upon him, he had been briefly convinced the end had really come. But the man hadn't tried to kill him, hadn't even hurt him, and now he was free again, the metal cuff removed from his sore wrist, able to stand up and move around as he wished, not tied up anymore. It was far less frightening, to be able to move around.

Apparently, he was not to be allowed to leave this room, but whatever dangers lurked in this house seemed unable to enter, either. The big man had sent the others away, the two men and the woman-- Loki had been wrong about the woman, she was one of them after all, but she had still been kind, had spoken to him, had seemed to think he was real-- and was now sitting down, talking quietly, sometimes looking toward the door as if to make sure nothing bad was trying to get in. As afraid as Loki was of everything to do with this place, the big man's demeanour gave him a small amount of confidence.

And there was something… there was something… he could almost remember…

Bright hair, and red swirling at his shoulders…

He had waited for someone like that, had hoped, and then imagined, and then just wished… and then he was unable to think clearly enough to make the pictures in his mind and hold onto them.

But he had waited for someone with bright hair, and red at his shoulders. And now, at last, he had arrived. He had arrived, freed Loki, and was sitting right there, one hand stretched out a little as though inviting Loki to come sit by him.

Loki edged a little closer.


	5. Chapter 5

Tony had always enjoyed his trips to the Scottish lodge, infrequent as they were and in spite of the fact that, unlike his old man, he could not think of any reason why he might want to shoot a perfectly innocent grouse. He wasn't a man who needed a lot of peace and quiet, but once in a while it was nice to go off somewhere and just unplug. It helped him to think.

With all that said, he had never in his life been happier to see the sprawling old stone building with its gables and diamond-paned windows. From the outside, the place looked rustic and untouched. From the inside, it had been painstakingly updated to the highest level of comfort and technology you could still hide behind the pastoral façade (because, face it, even when Tony wanted to "get away from it all," he did not consider light and hot baths and _the Internet_ as part of "it all".)

There was a part of Tony that loved the lodge, but after a hasty retreat from the Malibu house, followed by the entire group scattering to the four winds (really, what was the point of having a whole fleet of aircraft if you didn't use them?) and ending up at the hunting lodge by the most circuitous routes possible, he was just grateful to be anywhere. The confuse-any-pursuers flight paths had taken so long that Loki's housemates, travelling overnight by train with multiple connections, had actually arrived in Thurso before the Avengers, and Tony had to call ahead to get a staff member to pick them up at the railway station.

Jet lag, time zone confusion, and fear of pursuit weren't the only things Tony was worried about, either. Loki had responded to Thor, thank God, and he was really pretty compliant about allowing the others to get fairly close to him, as long as Thor stayed between them-- Tony had noticed Thor absolutely had to stay on Loki's right, to make up for the injured arm-- but he clearly wasn't happy about it.

He looked a great deal more with-it than he had, it was now obvious he understood what went on around him, but he was still silent and his face was set in an expression of vigilance that indicated he was not in, shall we say, a restful place in his spirit. It was completely understandable, but Tony found it painful to think about.

Also, Tony's anxiety was not just about Loki's wellbeing: he was also more than a little concerned about the knives.

He didn't even know how Loki was getting hold of them: as far as Tony knew he hadn't gone anywhere near the kitchen, and it wasn't like Tony had an armory in the house. (A mad scientist's workshop, hell yeah. An armory, not so much.) But shortly after Loki emerged from the guest room, glued to Thor and clearly hyper-alert for enemies, Tony had overheard Thor saying quietly, "You do not need that, Loki. Please give it to me," and had glanced around to see Loki reluctantly handing over what appeared to be either a very sharp paring knife, or possibly a throwing dagger.

At the time, Tony had found himself wondering not only where he'd gotten it, but also how he'd managed to conceal it until now, since at that moment his attire had consisted solely of pajama bottoms without any pockets. Sleight of hand is not, strictly speaking, magic, but it was pretty clear Loki was a master of the art.

And possibly also at picking pockets, since the only answer Tony could think of to the question of where he'd gotten the knife in the first place was off either Clint or Natasha.

Thor, the only one who spotted whatever Loki was doing, took two more knives away from his brother before they all left the house-- at least it was easier to explain how he'd hidden the second and third, since by then Thor had loaned his brother some of the "Midgardian" civilian clothes Thor kept in case he needed a disguise, but never wore otherwise. They were much too big for Loki, particularly the sneakers, but in jeans and a flannel shirt he looked considerably less like a prisoner or a patient, and he certainly seemed to feel less vulnerable.

He also seemed to feel better after Thor persuaded him to let Dr. Strange have a look at his arm. Clint and Natasha had popped the shoulder back into place and wrapped it up before they cuffed him, but obviously there was still damage, and until his magic recovered there wasn't much Loki could do about it.

It was ironic, really, that Loki seemed no more afraid of Dr. Strange than he was of, say, Steve, and Tony actually felt a little bitter about it. But Strange's bedside manner was less creepy than Tony would have thought: he was definitely fascinated by Loki's alien physiology but talked to him quite matter-of-factly (and considering what he had been party to doing to Loki, Tony felt _more_ than a little bitter about that, about him having the _gall_ , as well as furious that he, Tony Stark, felt guiltier about the whole situation than Strange did.)

Strange then put a spell on the sore shoulder that at least did something about the pain, if Loki's slightly freer movement and less strained expression were anything to go by.

So, by the time Tony and the brothers boarded a plane together, all Tony was really worried about was whether Loki would remain calm for the next few hours, and incidentally whether he had gotten hold of another knife. (He had: Coulson's Swiss Army knife, which he'd apparently swiped right out of Tony's pants pocket while Tony was wearing them. However, since he figured Loki wouldn't try anything with the knife as long as he knew Thor was protecting him, Tony decided to let him keep it. It seemed to make him feel better to have it on him.)

Tony had hoped (a better word might have been _prayed_ , if Tony would admit it) that Loki would sleep during the flight. He didn't: he just stayed quietly in his seat next to Thor and watched Tony as if he was calculating how fast he could get the Swiss Army knife open if Tony overpowered Thor and went for him.

After a while the silent regard made even Thor nervous, and he and Tony engaged in several hours' worth of increasingly stilted small talk to cover it. Loki didn't seem to notice the social awkwardness, although Tony supposed being convinced you were trapped in an enclosed space with someone planning your horrible death would probably cancel out all other considerations.

Tony had, in desperation, resorted to trying to explain baseball to Thor and was just about at the point where the infield fly rule was all there was left when they finally landed in Scotland. A staff member picked them up and politely pretended not to notice Loki's expression, which Tony had finally decided reminded him of a trapped coyote watching for the first opportunity to escape. He was quite seriously beginning to be grateful Loki hadn't thought to chew his own hand off to get out of the cuff.

Tony went into the house first, calling hello to whoever had arrived before them. The big entry hall opened onto the staircase, but there was a study off to the right as you came in the door, and when they heard Tony's voice, Loki's friends Mitchell and George appeared in the doorway.

Which was when Tony remembered that he had never fully explained the situation to them, so the vampire, the werewolf, and the invisible girl-- who had to be there too, even though Tony could not see her because, hey, invisible!-- had no idea of the state Loki was in.

And it was too late now, because as soon as they saw him Mitchell and George, and presumably Annie, let out identical cries of relief and joy and all kinds of nice things, and made a run toward the guy who firmly believed everyone was trying to kill him.

Tony, unable to do anything to save the situation, turned to look at Loki who, wide-eyed, stood his ground for maybe five seconds, his mouth working like he wanted to say something but still couldn't remember how.

Then he let out a hitching gasp that was not exactly the same as the ones he'd uttered earlier--

\-- and practically _threw_ himself at Mitchell and George, wrapped his arms around them both-- sore shoulder and all-- hooked his chin over Mitchell's shoulder like he couldn't possibly get close enough to suit him, and burst into tears. A second later Mitchell and George were crying, too, and the three of them were hugging and patting each other while George and Mitchell kept repeating how glad they were to see Loki and to know he was okay.

Tony might have gotten something in his eye, too, for a minute there.

And then, before anyone could God forbid get to feeling actually good about things, Loki pulled back and glanced around, bewildered, clearly looking for someone who wasn't there.

Or, maybe not someone who wasn't _there_ , exactly...

"I'm sorry, Annie, it seems he cannot," Thor said quietly, apparently in answer to a question, just as Tony remembered the reason _he_ couldn't see Annie was, he wasn't a magical creature himself. And now Loki...

Loki, looking stricken, started to pull away but Mitchell, who either didn't share Thor's theories about holding onto Loki against his will, or who saw this as a situation calling for different handling, wouldn't let go. George, too, kept a hand firmly on Loki's shoulder. To be fair, Loki not only didn't fight them, he almost immediately leaned into the contact. Mitchell cast a look at Thor and Tony.

"What did they do to him?" he asked. There was something in his expression that suddenly reminded Tony that the friendly Irish kid was, in fact, a vampire. Holding his gaze, Tony confessed,

"When we had the... the misunderstanding... with Loki a while back-- "

"I remember. The time you jumped to the conclusion that he'd put a curse on Captain America, and you clapped him in irons," Mitchell replied. Mitchell had been the housemate who had most seemed to want to believe the whole thing had been an honest mistake. He didn't seem particularly understanding at the moment.

"Yes," Tony agreed, not even slightly inclined to minimize his own role. Maybe if Mitchell bit him in the throat he'd feel better. "I don't know if Loki told you about the helicarrier restraints, but they're designed to neutralize powers like his. So for a while there, Loki was shackled to a chair while his magic was being drained. It was uncomfortable, he couldn't move, and I have the impression it scared him. And then after all that he turned out to be innocent.

"So I got to thinking, surely I could come up with a better system, something that wouldn't be so claustrophobic or so uncomfortable. I was working on something, and I figured the theory was sound, but I hadn't been able to test the prototype yet when SHIELD showed up and seized it. And then they kidnapped Loki and used him as their test subject, only they seemed to be interested in the long-term effects of sucking all the magic out of him. Theoretically it's kind of an interesting question, but in practice it turns out you can't remove the magic from someone like Loki unless you also remove all the... all the Loki from him, too. And it turns out SHIELD didn't care about that, so he's spent the last six weeks in a cell, in the device, getting drained right down to the involuntary physical functions."

"And you _designed_ this thing?" George asked in a high voice, his hand making comforting circles on Loki's uninjured shoulder. Tony looked straight at George, because it was easier than looking at Loki, who of course was hearing all this for the first time, too.

"I didn't think I was designing it to do anything like that," Tony insisted. "Like I said, I had a theory, but I hadn't had a chance to test it. I was actually going to ask you, Loki-- " Loki flinched away from him and Mitchell quietly placed himself between Loki and the perceived threat. Tony went on desperately, "You may not believe me right now, but I would have just asked you to wear it for a couple of hours so you could tell me how it affected you. I never intended it to be used for longer than that anyway, and if you'd told me it was hurting you, I would have scrapped the design and tried something else. I can't even begin to tell you how awful I feel about this.

"Anyway, SHIELD took the device and ignored my company's demands that they return it. But I had no idea, all that time, that it was actually being used on anybody. I swear to you. SHIELD has killed projects before this, and they usually just bury the technology. I thought... I thought it was in a warehouse, like the end of _Raiders Of the Lost Ark._ And then a few days ago Pepper Potts, my-- '" sidekick? Right hand? Surrogate heart? -- "CEO, found out SHIELD had put it to use, and I asked Coulson to look into it, and he found out about you and we went to check on you. As soon as we saw the condition you were in, Loki, we busted you out and I brought you to Malibu. And now we've got to figure out how to stop SHIELD, or fix it, or something, which is why all of us are fugitives. We don't agree with what SHIELD did to you, any of us. We're going to stop them from doing anything like this ever again. I promise."

George and Mitchell looked at Loki, and then Mitchell asked,

"Will his magic return?"

"It should," Tony replied. "I don't know how long it'll take, but it should."

"'Should,'" George repeated, ominously.

"That's all I've got," Tony insisted, fighting the urge to remind them once again that his device had been used without his permission, for a purpose for which it was never intended. This wasn't the time to ask for absolution. "But when we rescued him-- " he felt bad using the word, since it seemed to coerce them to see his role as heroic-- "when we got him out of there, he wasn't responding to anything except pain from the device, and not very much at that. He's been out of the device for..." Tony honestly couldn't remember how long it had been. More than an hour. Less than a week. Surely less than a week. "Not long, really." He addressed Loki directly. "And so far, you've made big gains physically, you're aware of what's going on around you, and you're starting to be able to feel things again. More than just fear. It might take a while, but you're going to get better. You're going to be well again, and your magic will come back." And when that happened, he'd have all his friends back, too. Thinking of that, Tony looked around helplessly and added, "Annie, I'm so sorry about all of it. I swear I never dreamed anything like this would happen."

"We know," Mitchell said, kindly, but like he was making an effort to be kind. "Will you excuse us for a minute?" One arm around Loki and the other hand in an attitude that suggested he was holding someone else's, George continuing to stick close to Loki's other side, Mitchell led the others into the study and closed the door behind them.

Tony heaved a sigh and then looked at Thor, who had been uncharacteristically silent throughout the entire encounter. It crossed his mind to wonder what Thor made of Loki's reaction to his friends.

"Are you okay?" Tony asked. Thor blinked, focused on him.

"It is kind of you to ask, but I wonder why you seem concerned about me," Thor replied.

Tony gestured helplessly toward the closed study door. "Shouldn't you be in there with them?"

Thor shook his head, and then smiled wryly at Tony. "No, I think this is what you might call a meeting of the house. I have no part in it."

Tony really, honestly, wasn't trying to spread his own misery around, but he heard himself asking, "And you don't feel bad that he-- ?"

Thor was, as Tony had previously noted, quicker than you might expect. This was also true of his mental processes.

"That he immediately sought comfort from his friends, when it took me such a time to coax him to accept any from me? Of course I do. I am telling myself that he is more himself now than he was when he first encountered me." Thor smiled that sad smile again. "And I am sure that is part of it, but the fact cannot be avoided: those three are certainly the only creatures in existence whose affection for him he has never doubted. It must make a difference."

"He knows you care about him," Tony protested.

Thor nodded. "I believe he does, now. And I make an effort to ensure he knows it, now. But it is also true that, for _centuries_ , I scarcely gave my brother a thought except when he was actually in my presence. I did not mean to take him for granted, and I had no idea what harm I was doing, but I did. It is perhaps not entirely my fault, though I deserve to be criticized for being so self-centred, because at the time I did not know how he came to be part of our family.

"Since the disaster and since he left us, I have found myself thinking more about Loki than I did in our whole lives before, and it has occurred to me, he is... My dear friend Volstagg has children, and I have noticed that when a babe is very young, you may show him a plaything, and he will laugh and be interested in it. But if you then hide the plaything, he will not look for it. As far as he is concerned, it is no longer anywhere. It is only when he is a little older that he will look for it."

"Sure," Tony said, totally bewildered by the turn the conversation had taken. "Object permanence. It's one of the first things babies learn-- that just because Mom's left the room, she hasn't stopped existing."

"That is a much better illustration, thank you. The peculiar thing about Loki, something I did not realize until very recently because I simply thought he was reserved and secretive-- the peculiar thing about Loki is, for him this 'object permanence' does not appear to exist with regard to love. When my parents or I express affection toward him, he seems to believe we feel it, at least in that moment. But I think he also believes, or at any rate used to believe, that the moment we stop visibly expressing it, we also stop feeling it. He has spent his entire life up to this point trying to coax these brief interludes of affection from us, apparently unable to believe the love was always there, and unable to explain to us what he was afraid of-- either out of fear we would tell him definitely that we did not really love him, or perhaps because he did not himself realize what he was doing.

"Later, of course, it was merely attention he sought, as if he had given up hoping for love and wanted us simply to remember he was there, as if we never thought of him when he was out of our sight. As if he could not believe in the 'object permanence' of his own _self._

"It would certainly have helped if we were a more demonstrative family, if our parents were in a position in which they could offer more attention to both of us, if they were more like Volstagg and his wife, whose children's feet scarcely touch the floor until they are practically old enough for schooling-- they are always being picked up and carried about and cuddled, by their parents, by their older siblings. If they are in distress, they seem quite sure someone will comfort them. Loki was not very old when he began to retreat whenever he was hurt or upset, apparently in the belief that no one would do as much for him. I suppose I had pushed him aside and told him not to be a baby, or perhaps our parents had told him to be a brave boy. Or perhaps it was simply something he believed without knowing why. Perhaps if he had gone to a household like Volstagg's as a baby, he would have grown up with more confidence that other people care about him.

"The thing that bothers me, that bothers my parents, now, is thinking how Loki came to be ours. Father found him, alone, in the icy ruins of a Jotun temple. It would have taken a Jotun infant quite some time to die of exposure, although I suppose starvation and thirst would have taken him before long. We have no idea how long he lay there crying for someone to help him before Father came along. And so-- it is perhaps fanciful, but I cannot stop thinking it-- I now wonder whether he still feels like that infant, whether the moment our attention leaves him, it is as though he has once again been left alone in that icy ruin. I did not know any of this until recently, but I think now that he has been afraid all his life, that his breakdown was at least partly an effort to control when and how we inevitably stopped loving him entirely."

Thor looked so miserable that Tony actually extended a hand toward him, but he was also remembering a lonely little boy fantasizing about doing _something_ , something so brave and smart and wonderful that his dad would really _look at him_ , would say how proud he was, would really love him.

Thor went on, "When Loki let himself fall, I was devastated. I missed him terribly and longed for him to come back to us. But when Heimdall found him, I must confess that I also feared what he might do down here on Midgard, that the outbreak would continue, that he truly had become evil. At the time I did not realize a sort of protective spell had fallen with him, a spell that helped him to return to his real self, instead of the mad, wretched creature who did all that damage.

"And the first thing that happened was, he was found by Annie, George, and Mitchell. He told them what he was, and what he had done, and they realized that despite everything he was worthy of assistance and affection, and provided it. They did not have to do so. He always assumed our parents kept him out of obligation, and then for a brief time he believed they kept him to make use of him. It is perhaps ironic that he was reassured by his new friends' decision to let him stay simply because they were fond of him, when that was the truth he was not yet able to accept about our parents, but of course at the time he had not had a real explanation from Father, still believed Father's intentions toward him were guided by political expediency rather than affection.

"At the time only Heimdall could see Loki's actions, and all he told us was that Loki had found companions and was not harming anyone. As soon as I could, I went to him, thinking to have it out with him. And I found a brother who was very different from the one I remembered, one whose first concern was the safety of his friends when I burst in, and who permitted them to comfort him when he was distressed by our conversation.

"And what shames me is how small the gestures were, that were needed to produce such an effect. They look at him when he speaks. They listen to him and consider what he says. They speak to him and include him when they make a decision, touch him when he needs comfort, and do not push him away when he is the one offering it. He has known these three a relatively short time, it is true, but their friendship has never been poisoned by the resentments and misunderstandings that have marked my entire life with him until now. There is little wonder he might harbour instinctive doubts about my intentions, but none about theirs."

Tony couldn't think of anything to say that might help the situation, so he said nothing. Thor smiled at him, kindly this time.

"The thing that gives us cause for hope is, Loki wants things to be better between us, as do I. So we try, and we seem to be making progress.

"But I cannot tell you how much I wish he had not spent so long trapped and in pain, believing no one was coming to help him. Or at least that I had been the one to rescue him."

~oOo~

Meanwhile, in the study, since Loki couldn't be upset by anything she did, Annie had just about decided to have a good cry about the whole miserable situation. It was bad enough that he scarcely looked like their Loki, skinny and unkempt, with a burn on his neck and more on his wrists, and an expression emptier than the one she remembered from from the day he fell into their garden. But the fact he'd lost so much of his magic that he couldn't even _see_ her anymore--

Annie naturally didn't have a lot of friends, what with being invisible to everyone except supernaturals, and the fact so many of the werewolves were shy and so many of the vampires were arseholes. Losing a friend was naturally a tremendous blow, and besides, she and Loki were... it was hard to say, exactly, but whatever it was, it was important to them.

But even at that, what bothered Annie most was the _assault_ , the idea of something so integral to who Loki was being just taken away from him like that, for no reason except to see if it could be done. It was a violation, and she was going to be a long old time forgiving Tony Stark for his part in it, even though it was obvious he really did feel as badly as he said he did.

With that said, though, they were in fact here as Tony's guests, and he was obviously trying to help them.

"Okay, this is bad, but it could be worse," Mitchell was saying, having reverted to his usual infuriating optimism. The rest of the house tended to follow Mitchell's lead, but that didn't mean they never wanted to smack him.

"Not to sound like the blasphemer in _Life Of Brian_ , but how could it possibly be worse?" George grumbled. "Jehovah, Jehovah, Jehovah."

"Stark could have left us to take our chances with SHIELD," Mitchell pointed out. "As it is, they can't know we're supernaturals too, or they would have grabbed us for their experiments already."

"I don't understand that," George admitted. "Why they don't know, I mean. Surely there are notes about us, after that other thing."

"Maybe Mr. Fury didn't make any notes," Annie suggested. "Or Mr. Coulson."

George relayed Annie's comment to Loki, who frowned thoughtfully but said nothing. It was unnatural, for Loki to be saying nothing.

"It doesn't sound like Stark has a plan yet, but we've pretty much got to help him," Mitchell pointed out. "Even if all we can do is help protect Loki if SHIELD comes after us." Loki looked at Mitchell with an expression on his face that Annie had seen before, once: that night he and she had tried to rescue the boys and Jane Foster from vampires. Loki had looked like that just before he, throat already torn open, had walked out of the school to confront the vampire captain and his underlings.

If SHIELD came after them, if they thought they were going to capture Loki again and finish their experiment, they were going to have a fight on their hands.

"Okay. We're agreed? We'll help Stark and the others any way we can?"

"Seeing as it's the only way to help ourselves, sure," George grumbled.

Annie suddenly thought of something. "You know... I hope nobody's realized Agent Coulson was the one who helped Tony rescue Loki."

George repeated the remark, again for Loki's benefit.

"Oh, shit," Mitchell remarked, and even Loki looked worried.

~oOo~

Thor really did appear to have cause for optimism about his relationship with his brother, because when the housemates emerged from the study it became obvious the still-silent Loki was just as inclined to cling to Thor as he had been previously. The housemates went along with this as though they considered it perfectly natural. When everyone else began to assemble, it even became clear that Loki was no longer motivated solely by the hope Thor would protect him: he didn't even recoil when Natasha and Clint came over to apologize for the "dustup" back at the mansion.

About half an hour after that, Tony stuck his hand in his pants pocket and discovered Coulson's Swiss Army knife had been returned to him.

Dinner was a pickup affair, mostly because everyone was hungry but confused about which meal they were actually supposed to be eating. Tony went off to check security systems while everyone else cleaned up.

Thor, Loki, and Loki's housemates vanished after the cleanup. Steve, Bruce, and Natasha eventually found them in the big comfortable common room, which was clearly intended for use by large groups. Thor and Loki occupied one end of the big leather couch, Thor slouched against one arm, absently stroking Loki's head, which was resting on his thigh while the rest of Loki was curled up in the middle of the couch. George was on the other end, leaning slightly away from the arm in a way that suggested someone the others could not see might be sitting on it.

Mitchell had found the controls of the huge television and was rummaging in the cabinet next to it, looking for a movie.

"Do we get TV reception here, do you suppose?" Steve asked.

"If it can be arranged, I am sure we do," Thor replied. "However, if you intend to watch a sporting event and shout at the television, I wish you would reconsider."

"Nah, let's find a movie," Natasha suggested, despite the fact she was wearing a screaming-green t-shirt with the legend _Roughriders Football_ written on it. "Will Loki mind?" she added, glancing at him. It wasn't clear whether he was asleep or simply had his eyes closed, but considering he probably hadn't actually slept in six weeks, even Natasha could see the kindness in not disturbing him.

"If it is not too filled with explosions," Thor fussed. "Normally such things would not bother him, but-- "

"Understood," Natasha agreed, just as Pepper, Clint, and Strange (who hadn't even suggested they release him, he seemed to just assume he was coming with them) walked in, Clint carrying his guitar case, and Mitchell exclaimed,

"Hey, there's a secret compartment in this cabinet."

"Don't look in it!" Bruce and Natasha shouted together, without thinking. Loki started, nearly kicking George, and raised his head, but settled back down when Thor made a soothing noise and he and George both patted him. Bruce muttered apologetically.

"Why not?" Mitchell asked, bewildered.

"A secret compartment in a DVD cabinet? Do we really want to find Tony's stash of porn?" Natasha demanded.

Steve looked so confused that for a horrible moment his twenty-first century companions were afraid they were going to have to explain "porn" to him-- although, really, surely there had been pornography in the Forties? It wasn't all Betty Grable pinups?

However, what he said was,

"It's Tony. Do you really think Tony would hide his porn?"

Everyone except Loki looked at each other. Steve had a point.

"So what's in there?" Natasha asked eagerly.

~oOo~

Forty minutes later, Tony rejoined the rest of the group. As he approached the common room, familiar music and voices let him know he was busted.

"What are you guys up to?" he asked innocently as he walked in. Thor, who was still acting as a human pillow for his apparently out-of-it little brother, looked up with a smile.

"We have found the variety show of the Muppets," he replied happily. "Steve and I have never seen this program before and we are all enjoying it tremendously. I perceive the frog is the leader, which is surprising considering there is also a bear and an eagle in the group, although admittedly, the bear does not have any leadership qualities, nor does he seem to know any amusing jokes-- "

"They broke into your stash, Tony. I tried to stop them," Pepper giggled, from a corner of the shorter couch, which she was sharing with Natasha and Steve.

"This is great," Steve added. "I've never seen anything so clever."

"Come join us," Natasha called, with heartless glee. "Later we're going to watch _The Princess Bride_. I see you have the two-disc special edition. We'll save _Pride and Prejudice_ for another time."

"Oh, good," Loki said in a drowsy voice, without opening his eyes. "Those are both favourites of Annie's." Since about half the group had never heard Loki speak before, they stared for a moment, but then the two old-man puppets began to heckle the bear again and everyone's attention was diverted.

It turned out Loki could sleep, if he was sleeping, through a considerable amount of noise as long as he felt safe. He didn't object to _The Princess Bride_ , although anyone who happened to be watching him would have noticed him raise his head wistfully a couple of times, as though looking for someone.

When the movie ended, Clint brought out his guitar and tuned it.

"Are you going to play the song about hammering in the morning and in the evening, all over this land?" Thor asked plaintively. He glanced down to see Loki smiling to himself, and went on, exaggeratedly pleading, "It is a good song, but I confess I have heard it more often than I really care to."

"Apparently I'm taking requests," Clint announced, and immediately played "If I Had A Hammer." By the last chorus, Loki had opened his eyes and was watching Clint with bleary amusement. "And now, _not_ by request, a few by John Prine. It's truly astonishing, what you can do with a handful of chords in the key of G."

Mitchell seemed to be the only member of the group who had ever heard any of the songs Clint played next, but everyone seemed to like them, lilting compositions with lyrics that were half-whimsical, half-wistful. When he ended the one with the chorus that suggested "You forgive us and we'll forgive you/ We'll forgive each other till we both turn blue," Loki suddenly spoke up.

"But I haven't."

"You haven't what?" Thor asked him gently.

"Turned blue," Loki replied, sounding not so much sleepy as drunk. He had one hand wrapped around Thor's knee, and now he stretched it out, looking at it in apparent confusion. "We have forgiven each other-- at least I think we have," he amended, twisting his head around to look up at Thor.

"We have," Thor assured him. "At any rate, I have forgiven you."

Loki smiled at his brother. "And I you." He returned his attention to his hand. "I really should have turned blue by now, but I have not. It is very strange."

"What do you mean?" Clint asked.

Loki raised his head and focused, more or less, on Clint. "Oh, did you not know? I am not the same sort of creature as my brother. I am actually a being called a Jotun, which is... not a monster. They just look like... rather the way rhinoceroses look like monsters, but are not."

"Jotun look like rhinoceroses?" Clint was making an honest effort to keep up, but was clearly getting more confused by the minute.

"No, no, I am sorry. Jotun are large blue creatures with red eyes. On two legs. Very large. I, of course, am not large, I am more what you would call a runt, even in my Jotun shape, which is probably why they didn't want me. I only look like this because of a shapeshifting spell I have apparently been under for nearly all my life. It's quite... involuntary, but you would think, wouldn't you, since I no longer have enough magic to perform a card trick, I would have turned back to my real form by now." Loki thought about it. "I am not sorry I haven't, I am _used_ to this one, and I don't much like the other, but it is a little confusing."

"How long have you been in this shape?" Strange spoke up suddenly.

Loki shrugged, which in his current posture came out as more of a wriggle. "Since infancy, I suppose. I understand I was quite a baby when my father took me home to Asgard, and apparently I took on this form the moment he picked me up."

"Have you ever taken on your other form?" Strange persisted.

"Not voluntarily. At least-- I once transformed into a full-sized Jotun in an effort to frighten a vampire who was bothering my friend Annie, but that was a genuine feat of shapeshifting. I suppose on the spur of the moment I could not think of anything more frightening to turn into. I have taken on my... my real shape a time or two, as a result of direct contact with a Jotun, or a particularly powerful Jotun artifact, but as soon as the contact ends the spell takes over again."

"At this stage, I wouldn't say it's a spell," Strange remarked.

"No?" Loki looked interested, at least as much as a drunk, which he closely resembled, could. Thor, his hand still on his brother's hair, also seemed interested.

"No," Strange told him. "It's interesting about natural shapeshifters, if you get them young enough they can imprint on almost any living thing, and that can become, in effect, their natural shape. As you've experienced, it takes direct physical contact with a creature in the original shape to cause them to switch back, but the change is only temporary."

"Really?" Thor asked.

"Oh, yes. There's a very interesting documented case, of a group of poachers trapping parrots for the black market, some years ago in South America. One of the poachers tried to take a parrot out of a trap net. It turned into a two-hundred pound man and both of them fell right out of the tree they were in. At nearly the same moment, another of the poachers, a newcomer to the group, touched a parrot and turned into one himself."

"A parrot," George said.

"Yes. One of the green ones, I think, with a little yellow on its head. Anyway, as soon as the contact ended the man turned back into a parrot, and the parrot turned back into a man, and I believe the entire group swore off poaching. And drink, if I am remembering the story correctly."

Loki studied Strange very carefully, and then smiled. "You are kidding me," he decided.

"I'm not," Strange insisted. "Obviously, it's unusual for two natural shapeshifters to find out in the same moment that they were in an imprinted form, but the story is true. In infancy, a shapeshifter's physical qualities are very malleable. In a state of distress, which I assume you must have been if your adoptive father thought it necessary to just pick you up and walk off with you, you would have taken on any shape likely to protect you. If you had no reason to return to your original form, the new one would have become your default. You haven't ever had an incident when you shapeshifted into something else and accidentally turned yourself back into the Jotun shape, have you?" Loki shook his head. "There you are. You could probably argue that you now have two natural shapes, but the one you're in now is clearly the physical default."

"Well," Loki said, "that explains a great deal. I must confess, I do not like the Jotun form very much. I know it is unfair of me, but I have spent so long being afraid of them, it is hard to get used to the idea of being one myself." He looked up at Thor again. "You have less trouble with the idea than I do."

"I?" Thor asked, startled.

"Yes," Loki said, then added, with the devastating, embarrassing candour of one who is either drunk or loopy with exhaustion, "I would have expected you to try to kill me. I tried to _make_ you kill me."

"I would never try to kill you, Loki. You're my brother. I love you."

"I also tried to kill _you_ ," Loki said, as though talking to himself. "I _did_ kill you."

"Well, yes, you did, but I don't think you really meant it," Thor replied soothingly. Tony now figured everyone in the room, with the possible exception of Strange, even George and Mitchell who were clearly not hearing any of this for the first time, was just as uncomfortable, not to mention weirded out, as he, Tony, was.

"That's true. I didn't," Loki agreed. "Really, I didn't. But did you never feel... horrified about it? I can't believe you never felt horrified."

Thor was beginning to look trapped, despite the obvious artlessness of Loki's questions.

"I admit, when Father told me about it, I did find it all very hard to understand. I just... Perhaps it just doesn't seem very real to me. You have always changed shape. It's one of the things I know about you: you are clever, you are talented at magic, and you can change your shape. I suppose I can't see it as more than that. I suppose I just think of you as yourself. You've never been like anyone else I know."

"But for me to be the son of Laufey," insisted Loki, who had apparently forgotten there was anyone else in the room. "I can't believe you could just forgive that. I couldn't forgive it."

"There isn't anything to forgive," Thor replied helplessly. "You are not responsible for that."

"That is an answer from the head," Loki argued. "Not a real one. How can you possibly just say it doesn't _matter?_ It mattered to me until I went mad. How could it not matter to you?"

"I don't know, Loki," Thor snapped, finally losing patience. "Perhaps I just love you more than you do."

Loki looked up at Thor for a moment, his mouth open as if he had forgotten what he was about to say. No one could say that Thor's answer did not sound real.

"Oh," Loki said, in a tone of discovery. "Of course. That's... yes."

And, as if having heard what he needed, he was free to finally go to sleep, he put his head back down and did just that. Thor looked around helplessly.

"I would be very grateful, if you would not remind him of this conversation when he wakes," he said quietly. "It is not like him to speak like this."

"Just as well," Clint remarked, putting the guitar back into its case. "Remind me never to play that particular song around Loki again."

"Agreed," said Thor. "Although I am very grateful you played it once."

Clint grinned at him. "Glad to help."


	6. Chapter 6

Tony had never spent a lot of time in the kitchen of anyplace he lived, but that was where he found Steve, Thor, Loki, and Loki's housemates early the next morning. The kitchen had been renovated along with the rest of the house and could, if Tony chose to hold a company retreat here (as if) easily accommodate the cooking of meals for a couple of dozen. However, the remodel had preserved the end of the room that had once served as the de facto staff lounge: the fireplace, the big oak table used as a work surface or for meals, a couple of comfortable chairs.

It was evident that George and Mitchell, unlike Tony, came from a culture in which you hung out in the kitchen, because they had taken over the big table with every sign of making themselves gratefully at home. Loki had apparently adapted to his friends' tendencies as if he had never been a prince of anywhere, while Thor and Steve, despite the plates of breakfast foods before them, looked like they were at a war council.

A war council in which everyone involved was wearing pajamas and/or woolen bathrobes, the latter having been added to each guest room by the interior designer, against Tony's protests that he was not running a damn hotel. Since Loki and his friends had arrived with only the clothes they stood up in, the designer's insistence on details like the bathrobes and extra toothbrushes in all the baths was suddenly welcome.

One slightly incongruous note was the laptop computer sitting on the table between Loki and Steve. Neither appeared to be using it, and Tony wondered what it was there for.

"Morning, everyone," Tony hailed them.

"Oh, hi Tony," Steve replied. "There's coffee on, and tea in the pot if you prefer."

"I do not," Tony said, making for the coffee. "But thank you."

"Annie makes a wonderful cup of tea," Mitchell assured him.

"I'm sure she does. Good morning, Annie," Tony said to the room in general, poured himself a coffee, and went to join the others at the table. He started to pull out the chair between Steve and Loki, where the laptop sat, but Loki apologetically forestalled him.

"Annie is sitting there," he explained.

"Oh, excuse me, Annie," Tony said, and then glanced at the screen of the laptop, suddenly understanding its presence: there was a word processing document open on the desktop, with a series of pleasantries typed out. "Are you using this so Annie can communicate directly with Loki and Steve?"

"Yes, George thought of it," Steve replied.

"Very clever," Tony congratulated George. Turning his attention to Loki, he added, "You're looking brighter today. How do you feel?"

"Rather as if I had been washed in too much bleach," Loki admitted. It struck Tony as an apt analogy: Loki was a pale version of his old vibrant self, hollow-eyed and with the look of someone recovering from a long, serious illness. Still, the overall improvement was dramatic, and spoke optimistically of the temporary nature of the inhibitor's effects. Not that Tony had any intention of reviving the project under any circumstances.

"How about your-- ?" Tony made a gesture with his right hand, and Loki shook his head.

"No. When I try to produce magic, I feel only a sensation like something trying to rouse itself. It is there, but recovering very slowly. I am not sure it is wise to... to pester it." Tony nodded his understanding. Loki went on sheepishly, "I also... I have a feeling I might have made quite a fool of myself, last night. I have a memory of talking a great deal, but I do not remember very much of what I said."

"You and Thor... had a word," Mitchell spoke up. "He can fill you in later, in private."

"Ah," Loki murmured, and turned to Thor. "I remember... feeling reassured, and then this morning I woke up in a bedroom, so presumably you had to carry me to bed like a child or a drunkard. I am so sorry, everyone. You have spent a lot of time and a great many resources on rescuing me. I... I really do not deserve it."

"Nonsense," Tony said firmly. Loki looked frightened again, only this time as if he knew what he was afraid of. He chewed on his lower lip and then, as though he could not help himself, insisted,

"But I... I have done things for which I really do deserve to be punished. You do not know-- "

"Actually, we do," Steve interrupted, suddenly Captain America all over in spite of pajamas and a bathrobe. "We know what you did, and we know why you feel guilty about it. Honestly, the fact you _do_ feel guilty is a good sign. But you're not supposed to be randomly punished and then have to decide for yourself whether you deserve it and why. That's not the way the system is supposed to work. We rescued you because we think you deserved to be rescued, but we also did it because our whole system of justice deserves better, too."

Loki looked so relieved that Tony wondered whether he had actually been steeling himself to be marched back to SHIELD custody after his confession.

"You are very good to me," was all he said.

"No more than we should be," Thor replied gruffly, and changed the subject. "Tony, we have been considering the problem of SHIELD. Steve has made me see the impossibility of conducting a military operation against a body of its size and strength." Tony cast a quick glance of gratitude at Steve. "Also, Annie has expressed the opinion that, if we were to attack SHIELD directly, we would be made to look like rogue agents and could find ourselves labeled supervillains."

"I'm pretty sure that's exactly what would happen," Tony agreed. "They'd certainly spin the situation to make their actions look perfectly reasonable, like they were protecting the world from a dangerous alien supernatural power."

Everyone looked at Loki, wrapped up in a green-and-gray plaid bathrobe, black hair uncharacteristically rumpled, contemplating a piece of wheat toast with jam. He did not look much like a threat to international stability. Tony began to have the very beginnings of an idea.

He lost his train of thought when the laptop began to make the tapping noise of someone typing. Loki and Steve leaned toward it while the others listened to something Tony, Steve and Loki couldn't hear. Apparently Annie was talking and typing at the same time.

"Right, thanks, Annie, I nearly forgot," Mitchell exclaimed. Tony started to get up to look at the laptop, but Mitchell relayed the comment: "Annie just reminded us that last night, we were worried someone would realize Agent Coulson helped you rescue Loki. Have you been in touch with him lately?"

"Lately" was kind of a relative term, considering it had been a matter of about two days since Tony had gotten the intelligence from Coulson that had led to Loki's rescue. Two days, or three? Tony couldn't remember.

"No," Tony admitted. "I'll do that-- " he looked at the clock, tried to figure out what time it was wherever Coulson was-- "now. Just a minute."

He pulled his phone out of his bathrobe pocket, called up Coulson's number. It rang through to voicemail, which was full. Everyone looked at each other.

"There might be a perfectly good reason for this," Tony said carefully, "but I think I had better look into it."

George made an apologetic face. "I hate to even mention this, but... we have another problem, too. Tonight is the full moon."

Tony, who hadn't yet finished his first cup of coffee, nearly asked George what he was talking about. And then he remembered his own mental description of Annie, Mitchell, and George:

The invisible girl.

The vampire.

And the werewolf.

~oOo~

Phil Coulson was not a man inclined toward fear. He would, however, admit to frequently feeling disgusted. Right now, for instance.

He didn't regret rescuing Loki, not one little bit. In the first place, there was no excuse for what had been done to him. Coulson was quite capable of reconciling many of the actions of SHIELD with his own conscience: for instance, the time he'd seized all of Jane Foster's research materials. That had been necessary. What had been done to Loki had not been necessary, and even if it had been necessary it still would not have been defensible. Coulson would have objected if the victim had been Dr. Doom, let alone a perfectly harmless private citizen.

"He's not harmless, and he's not a citizen," Maria Hill reminded him. "He's not even human."

"No, but there are laws against treating a Labrador retriever the way you treated him," Coulson countered evenly. "And he chooses to be harmless."

"That's hardly good enough," Hill said, folding her arms. "With the kind of powers he has, he could become a threat to public safety at any moment."

"In much the same way any US citizen with a gun in the house could become a threat," Coulson pointed out. "Are you planning to arrest all of them? Because I have a feeling the gun lobby might have something to say about that. Not to mention every constitutional lawyer in the country."

"You have a lot of clever rationalizations, Agent Coulson," Hill very nearly sneered. "But this agency has made a policy decision for the safety of the United States."

"Against a school janitor who lives in Great Britain," Coulson countered calmly. "It never occurred to you to get the British police involved? Just in the interest of interagency cooperation? See whether they were worried about him?"

"There was no need," Hill said coldly. "Good afternoon." And she walked away, the door closing after her.

And there was the other reason Coulson had no qualms about breaking Loki out of SHIELD custody: he no longer trusted the direction of the agency. Specifically, he did not trust the ethics or the vision of the new director, the improbably young-looking Maria Hill.

Most people who knew Coulson-- few of them intimately-- would have thought him a man not much given to introspection. They would have been wrong: nobody who said as little as Coulson could avoid thinking a great deal. And he had given a lot of thought to his distaste for Hill.

He hadn't liked it when Fury was replaced. He'd worked for the man for long enough to have reached an understanding with him, and he'd always felt Fury was capable of seeing a big picture. But changes happen, and he had resigned himself to Fury's departure.

When Hill was appointed, Coulson had taken himself to task for his own immediate mistrust. Maybe he simply objected to reporting to a woman. He'd given some thought to that possibility, visualizing other options. Suppose he was part of a tactical exercise commanded by Natasha Romanov-- how would he feel about that?

Fine, he decided. Romanov was solid, smart, maybe a little too ruthless, but there were circumstances in which that was a plus. Under those conditions, Coulson would have total confidence in Romanov's leadership.

He then considered the directorship of SHIELD, and concluded there were at least three female senior agents he could think of who would have made excellent choices for director. If he expanded his thinking to allow for the possibility of a director whose role focused on administration and overall policy over fieldwork, he also thought headhunting Virginia "Pepper" Potts, the CEO of Stark Industries, could potentially have been a very good move.

The idea of Director Potts was fun to think about not only because the woman was smart and brilliant at the kind of tactical thinking that could keep a big company like Stark or an agency like SHIELD moving forward. It also cheered him to think of how utterly pissed off Tony Stark would have been if such a thing had happened.

So. Coulson's objection to Hill was not that she was a woman, but that she was Hill. She was smart, no question, but it was the kind of unstable smart that made you worry about what she might think was a good idea.

She also had the kind of black-and-white, us-or-them, paranoid outlook that politicians seemed to mistake for clear-eyed, hard-headed knowledge of the world. The problem with people like Hill was, they saw everything as a threat, with the result they were likely to overlook a real danger while they hammered at an imaginary one. Coulson was pretty sure Hill genuinely could not tell the difference between a real threat and one she had blown up to gigantic proportions in her own head.

Cocker spaniels had been known to bite people, for instance. But only someone with the mind of a Maria Hill could look at one trotting down the sidewalk and see exactly the same threat level as would be posed by a tiger.

Take the Loki thing. Quite aside from the absolute moral _wrongness_ of what had been done to him (Coulson did not often deal in absolutes, but there were times when you just had to call a spade a spade), there was the undeniable fact that now he was a guy with magical powers and also every reason to be angry at SHIELD. Two months ago, Loki had been no threat to anybody, except what he called "ill-disposed supernatural creatures." So, a rogue vampire or demon or whatever that popped its head up in Bristol and tried to hurt anybody was likely to find itself looking down the business end of one of Loki's spells.

Great, in Coulson's opinion. It was like having a little branch of the National Guard or something, making sure nothing got started in Bristol that SHIELD or an agency like it would eventually have to deal with somewhere else. And, being a creature of magic himself, Loki was a lot more competent to assess the threat than a human who might be scared of magic on general principles. He wasn't going to waste time and resources declaring war on fairies or pixies or whatever was harmless. How exactly was that bad?

It was bad, in Hill's opinion, because it wasn't under SHIELD's control. Or jurisdiction, but paranoid types like Hill were never very good at jurisdiction. And instead of dealing with the problem in a sensible way, like trying to bring Loki into the fold for SHIELD's own reassurance-- there was no guarantee he'd agree, maybe Loki wasn't a joiner, but the point was nobody had even tried that route-- Hill had tried to neutralize him by ordering him kidnapped and taking away his powers. Face it, what happened to Loki wasn't just about testing the inhibitor.

A gang of terrorists had done something similar to Tony Stark once, and instead of giving in and doing their bidding, he'd become Iron Man.

The thing about what Hill had ordered done to Loki was, it left no room for any outcome other than killing him outright or keeping him in that miserable state until he died. They couldn't let him go, not after provoking him into a state where he was apt to turn into the very supervillain they feared in the first place. It was the definition of both a circular problem and a self-fulfilling prophecy: SHIELD was setting itself up to create problems it would then have to "solve" with extreme prejudice.

And, in the meantime, genuine threats would be left to flourish, while SHIELD ran around in circles, creating trouble for itself and then congratulating itself on wasting its resources dealing with it.

Phil Coulson was not a man much inclined toward fear. However, as he sat on the edge of the cot, in suit pants and shirt, his tie, jacket, belt and shoelaces confiscated, studying the cell door through which Maria Hill had just exited, he would confess to feeling completely disgusted.

~oOo~

Coulson never did answer his cell phone, nor did he pick up at the office.

"What if we called the switchboard?" Steve suggested, then looked uncertain. "Do agencies still have switchboards? Where you can call and ask to be put in contact with someone directly?"

"Sure, but SHIELD would record every call that came through, and they might be checking the recordings against voice exemplars or something," Tony pointed out. "Which means they'd figure out it was us calling."

Loki looked thoughtful. "Perhaps I might be able to assist?" he offered diffidently.

"Sure," Tony replied, figuring Loki meant, SHIELD probably didn't have recordings of his voice, at least not recordings in which it wasn't distorted by agony. There was a chance nobody would recognize the public-school-English-sounding voice asking for Coulson.

And then Loki began speaking, and Tony really hoped nobody at the agency recognized Morgan Freeman's voice out of context, because that was what came out of his mouth. Tony, making recordings of his own, ran a voiceprint and discovered it wasn't merely an excellent impersonation, the characteristics of the voice were completely different from Loki's real one. Apparently, even without magic Loki retained some of his gifts.

Loki called twice more, later, again borrowing the accents of actors (Dan Aykroyd and Jessica Tandy, apparently someone had been watching _Driving Miss Daisy_ recently) and got the same response each time: Coulson was on assignment, and the switchboard was not at liberty to say when he would be back.

"That's got to be bullshit," Clint, who seemed more worried than anyone, insisted. "If he was in the field, he might not answer his phone, but he wouldn't let his voicemail clog up like that so nobody could even leave him a message."

"The representatives I spoke to were definitely lying," Loki stated. Tony looked at him and he shrugged. "Takes one to know one," Loki explained, with a grim little smile.

Tony dragged a hand through his hair, which was already sticking up like a porcupine's quills. "I think it's time we assumed the worst, don't you? If SHIELD has made him disappear, he'll be in custody within a SHIELD building, but there's no telling which one. There are HQs all over the world."

"Would there be a record of a prisoner?" Mitchell asked. "Under an alias, maybe?"

"Yeah," Tony agreed. "They'd have to account for a presence in the cells-- "

"And one of the characteristics of an agency that's started behaving like this is, they generally keep excellent records," Steve said grimly. Tony had a feeling they were no longer talking exclusively about SHIELD.

"I should be able to find out-- " Tony began.

"You think you can break into SHIELD's computer system?" Bruce asked. "Without their noticing?"

"Already have," Tony shrugged. "Years ago. It wasn't as much of a challenge as you'd think. Of course, I _am_ a genius."

Steve grinned. "Good thing you're also so modest, or you'd be impossible to live with."

Tony spent the next few hours connected to SHIELD's internal server, and learned a great many things he would rather not know.

"There are eleven prisoners in SHIELD custody right now whose IDs are questionable," he reported. "Apparently, Loki wasn't their maiden effort at kidnapping and neutralizing someone outside the legal system. Three of these prisoners are listed as having been arrested within the last two days, and are being held in different locations outside the United States. If one of them is Coulson, they might make a point of taking him off home soil, but there's no telling where. And if we make a move on any SHIELD HQ and guess wrong, we won't get a second chance."

This was not very encouraging, but when Tony started looking through SHIELD's cell phone records to see who Maria Hill had been calling recently, Mitchell and George suddenly spoke up.

"Annie says that name, Cray-- that's one of the guys who was at our house," George said.

Tony turned his head (the wrong way) to address Annie, who was apparently leaning over his shoulder. "You're sure?"

George relayed Annie's reply: "Yes, she says she remembered the name particularly because of the Cray brothers." At Tony's look of confusion he elaborated, "Notorious English crime family."

"And Hill's talked to him several times over the past few days," Tony mused. "I wonder if that means anything?"

"I wonder if he's still lurking around our house?" Mitchell countered.

"Let's find out," Tony suggested, and looked up the GPS data on Cray's phone. "That your address?"

George, Mitchell, Loki and presumably Annie, looked over his shoulder at the map on the computer screen. And nodded.

"So," Natasha murmured, "should we send a deputation, to ask him a few questions?"

~oOo~

Roger Cray had been on stakeouts before, and was quite accustomed to the combination of anxiety and boredom that went with the role. This particular assignment had started to lean more toward boredom, since he was into his second day of hanging around in this scruffy little house on the off-chance one of Laufeyson's housemates returned. Cray thought by now they had to have figured out SHIELD was onto them, or maybe they'd made contact with Laufeyson somehow and had all made a run for it.

However, that was someone else's assignment. Cray had been told to hang around here in case anyone showed up, and that was what he was doing.

He was almost surprised when he finally heard someone turning the handle of the kitchen door.

He was surprised as hell when the door opened and Laufeyson himself walked in, whistling to himself. The rogue alien was even taller than Cray remembered from the day he and Hill had encountered him at the school (and the idea of a creature like that lurking around _a school_ , as if he _belonged_ there, still made Cray's blood boil.) The extra height might have been an illusion caused by the fact he was even thinner than he had been six weeks ago. The turned-up sleeves of his oversized flannel shirt revealed burns around both wrists and there was another visible around his throat.

Which might have been the reason why, when he saw Cray, he didn't hesitate for even a second, just fled back out the door.

Cray followed, reaching for his pistol as he did.

It was still halfway in the holster when he stepped through the door and had the very brief impression of colliding with a brick wall.

He woke an unspecified time later, lying half on his side on a concrete floor, his cheek in what felt like a puddle of drool. His hands were bound behind his back with what were probably his own cuffs, and as his eyes began to focus he became aware of a pair of sneakers very near his face.

"Oh, you're awake!" exclaimed a cheerful voice. Cray rolled his head sideways and looked up a great distance, past demin-clad legs and a plaid flannel shirt, to a smiling face way up in the sky.

The face came closer as its owner crouched before Cray, and as it got closer the smile looked to Cray like the kind of grin one normally imagined rising toward a surfer, with a fin on top.

"Agent Cray, am I correct?" Laufeyson asked, bright-eyed and more than a little manic. "Loki Odinson. You may know me by my second patronymic, but it is not my preference. I believe we may have met already, but I confess my memory of events over the past few weeks is a little blurry."

"What do you want from me?" Cray demanded, which he knew was stupid of him: what this creature wanted was revenge, certainly to murder him. The fact he had not done so already was a bad sign, it meant Cray's death might be extended over a considerable period of time.

To Cray's surprise, Laufeyson… Odinson… Loki, actually answered his question:

"I need to know the whereabouts of Agent Phil Coulson. It is a matter of great importance to me." His expression had suddenly become earnest, as though he was genuinely concerned for Coulson's safety. It was a little disorienting.

"How should I know?" Cray replied, recognized the misstep as he made it, and tried to correct: "I have no idea where he is."

Loki shook his head, looking disappointed. "Now that is simply untrue."

"I swear-- " Cray tried. Loki reached down, caught him under the armpits, and hauled him to a sitting position, leaned up against the wall.

"You should not even bother wasting your breath with lies to me," Loki advised. "I was telling falsehoods nine hundred years before you were born. It is one of my besetting sins-- probably I should have been beaten for it as a child, but my mother is soft-hearted, and I think my father thought it might prove to be a useful skill one day. And behold! He was correct. I think the local expression is 'set a thief to catch a thief'-- at any rate, do not attempt to lie to me. You know what has become of Coulson, and I need to know what you know. I apologize if that became too circular for you to follow, I do realize you probably have rather a headache at the moment."

Cray decided his best option was to remain silent. Loki remained a short distance away, squatting on his haunches, one elbow propped on a knee and his chin resting in that hand, looking thoughtful. In that attitude he looked strangely gentle.

"Sure you won't tell me?" he prompted kindly. "Last chance." The slightly regretful way he uttered the last two words made Cray's heart turn over. "Very well. I see you leave me no choice."

He rose to his feet in a graceful movement, walked over to a steel door, and let himself out.

Left alone in what he now realized was a large, empty storage bunker, Cray did not feel comforted by his solitude.

~oOo~

"Didn't talk?" Tony asked unnecessarily, as Loki let himself out of the storage bunker.

"It is not entirely unexpected," Loki shrugged. "George, are you _sure_ you do not mind the role I have asked you to take?"

"Quite sure, as long as you and Thor are sure you can get him out of there in time," George replied. "I don't mind being part of a bluff in a good cause, but I'm not going to actually kill him. Or infect him."

"No, of course not," Loki assured his friend. "I have enough on my conscience already." He paused. "Surely that is a good sign? That I would feel guilty for being a party to killing him?"

"It's a very good sign," Steve replied warmly.

"Well, that is a relief. I had thought it was an anomaly, when I found I could not kill the vampire, Geoff, but perhaps I am actually adjusting to local mores." He glanced back at the door. "Although it would be helpful if SHIELD was also inclined to share them."

"Yeah," Steve agreed. He consulted his watch. "Okay: moonrise is just before ten, and full moon happens about fifteen minutes after that. We've got forty minutes before George is at the point of no return, is that right?"

George nodded. "Yes. Although things will begin to get action-packed, as soon as the moon rises."

"Understood," Steve nodded.

Loki looked at Thor. "You do not have to make yourself known to him, brother."

Thor smiled. "Of course I do. It may do him good, to think of you as a being who _has_ a brother. Shall we try again?"

~oOo~

Cray was still propped against the wall when Loki, Thor, and George let themselves back into the bunker. Ignoring Cray, Loki addressed George:

"Does this look like a suitable place to affect your transformation, my friend?"

"Terrific," George replied, walking around inspecting the walls and the height of the windows as though he had not already done a walk-through earlier in the day, before they decided on the bunker as the location for both the interrogation and the transformation, and then moved everything out of it. "There's no way I'd be able to get out of here before morning."

"Excellent," Loki said cheerfully.

Cray seemed to ignore him, being fully occupied staring in disbelief at Thor. "What are you doing here? You're an Avenger!"

"I had noticed that," Thor replied, gently exercising his new command of sarcasm. Loki did not bother to stifle his own snicker at his brother's tone. Cray glanced at Loki, then returned his attention to Thor.

"I mean, you're acting like you're friends with him," he clarified, obviously shaken.

Thor smiled. "One has so many roles," he said. "I, for instance, am an Avenger, it is true. But I am also a prince of Asgard, a son of Odin and Frigga-- and also the elder brother of Loki."

Cray's face went deathly pale. "You're what?"

Thor spoke very clearly. "I am the elder brother of Loki. Surely he introduced himself to you? Loki, you did remember your manners."

"I did, brother," Loki assured him.

"Well, did the name Odinson not ring any bells? That is the correct idiom, is it not, George?"

"It certainly is," George replied, and began to unbutton his shirt.

"What's he-- ?" Cray began, then returned his attention to Thor as the much larger man crouched down to speak to him.

"It must have occurred to you that someone might be worrying about him?" Thor pointed out. "Our parents have been terribly concerned-- our mother was quite beside herself. And our father, to be honest, is no longer young. It is not good for them, to fret so."

Thor looked so reproachful that Cray, apparently involuntarily, muttered, "I'm sorry."

"That is a start," Thor said kindly. "You can help to make up for this by assisting us in locating Agent Coulson. There are those who worry about him, too."

Cray opened his mouth to say something, but was distracted when George, now shirtless, doubled over screaming.

"What's the matter with him?" Cray demanded. Loki glanced at him and said carelessly,

"Nothing serious. Merely a condition he has."

"A _condition?_ " the agent repeated. "What _kind_ of a condition?"

"Oh, a relatively minor one, related to the phase of the moon." Loki smiled, or at any rate he pulled his lips back from his teeth.

"What does that mean?" Cray demanded.

George, who was now removing his trousers, replied impatiently, "I'm a werewolf, you idiot." The transformation struck him again and he fell to his knees. "Thor, Loki, you had better-- " he screamed, then went on, panting, "you had better clear out of here."

"In a moment," Loki said calmly, though he glanced at the door to consider how fast he could get there.

Cray's eyes were enormous. "You're not… he's not serious."

"Oh, he is indeed. Getting moreso by the minute, I would say," Loki said quite cheerfully. "Where is Agent Coulson?"

"You're not going to leave me here," Cray said.

"I'd prefer not to, certainly. Where is Agent Coulson?"

George's screams were now almost continuous, and his body contorted as the werewolf struggled to emerge. Cray tried to scoot sideways along the wall to get as far from him as possible, while the brothers watched impassively.

"You can't… you can't be planning to-- " Cray nearly sobbed.

Loki dropped to one knee in front of him, all pretense of good humour gone.

"Listen to me, you mewling worm. It is the fault of your agency-- and you look _ominously_ familiar to me-- that I spent six weeks suffering the kind of pain you are about to experience, except of course that in your case the pain will be over _very quickly_. I would be there yet, in a state of drooling idiocy in which nothing was real to me but agony, had I not been rescued by Agent Coulson. I want to know what you have done with him, and whether he has come to any harm."

"You have no idea what a world of trouble you'll be in if you kill me," Cray tried to bluster.

"I have no intention of killing you," Loki replied evenly. "I plan merely to let nature-- or, in this case, supernature-- take its course."

He glanced at George, trying to calculate how much longer they had before the bluff failed. They could always threaten to chuck Cray back in with George, but if they pulled him out once the agent was likely to realize Loki had no intention of killing him.

Trying to control the tremor that wanted to creep into his voice, Loki repeated, "Where is Agent Coulson?"

George, face distorting as his muzzle extended, pupils turning into elongated slits, grinned at Cray and uttered his final coherent words: "You better tell him. In a minute I won't be able to control myself anymore." He screamed, and added, in a slushy rush, "In two minutes, I won't want to."

"London!" Cray screamed. "He's in the London HQ!"

"Quite sure?" Loki asked, hoping his pulse was not hammering visibly in the side of his throat, trying to keep his voice steady.

"Yes! London!"

"Because the moon does not set for several hours. If we arrive in London and find you have lied-- "

_"He's in London nobody's hurt him he's in the cells get me out of here!"_

"That sounded like the truth to me, brother," Thor commented.

"To me, too," Loki agreed, and opened the door. Thor scooped the half-fainting Cray up in his arms and carried him outside. Loki followed, closing and bolting the door behind them, trying not to wince at the sound of George crashing into the inside of the door.

He turned to face the rest of the group and offered them a slightly unsteady smile.

"It seems we are bound for London."

"I always liked that city," Steve replied, with a shaky smile of his own.


	7. Chapter 7

It turned out that Clint and Natasha had both escorted prisoners to the cells in London HQ, so they were able to offer personal input to supplement the floorplans Tony had pulled off the SHIELD server.

"I feel like I should be worried about how easy it was for you to get hold of those," Bruce remarked to Tony's back as he leaned over the laptop.

"It wouldn't have been easy for anyone without my level of expertise," Tony reassured him off-handedly. "Okay. London has only one subterranean confinement level, with twenty cells in it. There's an entrance on the level above, and I think I can confuse the elevator sensors so it looks like someone's going up instead of down. Obviously there are cameras all over the damn place, but it looks like I can hack all of them to run a clip of nothing happening-- except for the one actually on the level where the cells are."

"Shit," Natasha muttered.

"Yeah," Tony agreed. "We can create a diversion to pull the guards somewhere else in the building, but there's still the problem of getting in, finding Coulson, and getting him out before anyone spots us on the cameras and gets down there."

"We can handle the guards," Clint assured him.

"I know we can, but remember, we're not killing anyone," Steve spoke up warningly. The looks he got from Clint and Natasha fell somewhere on the scale between "Pussy!" and "Spoilsport!" but Steve remained firm. "No. In the first place, we're not murderers-- " either Clint or Natasha, or possibly both, snorted "-- and in the second place, we can't afford to give SHIELD a weapon like that against us. No. We're not supervillains. We're not killing anybody, period."

Loki, still trembling slightly in the aftermath of his confrontation with Cray, said nothing. The explosion of wrath he had directed at the agent had not been feigned for effect: although he had genuinely, at least consciously, not wanted to harm the man, and had certainly not wanted to involve his innocent friend or his brother in such a crime…

Well. There was a part of him that had wanted to tear the agent's skin from his body and then rip the flesh from his bones. He had not realized until that moment just how angry he was. Indeed, up until that moment he had not realized he was angry at all.

Tony and Steve had attempted to explain to him what Dr. Strange had told them, about his emotions being drained and their needing to recover along with everything else, and he supposed this was as good an explanation as any for the conflicting tides of feeling that came and went: he found himself vacillating between gratitude toward those who had rescued him, rage at those who had injured him, and the guilty awareness that he really deserved much worse in recompense for all his crimes. Surely the Jotun people would argue that a few weeks of discomfort was a small enough price for him to pay…

Loki steepled his hands and pressed them into his mouth and nose, trying to push away the thoughts. He was no longer even sure Cray really was one of his original kidnappers-- as he had told the agent, his memory of the events of the last few weeks was faulty at best, he really did not remember anything clearly about the actual abduction, and all these agents began to run together in his mind, in their black suits and ties. Perhaps he just thought he recognized Cray because he wanted to be angry at someone, to place the blame on someone for what had happened to him.

Loki knew perfectly well it was not a good idea, for him to allow himself to blame others for what he saw as his own misfortunes, to look for someone to punish. He had... a poor track record, when he allowed himself to think like that.

A hand fell on his still-sore right shoulder and he flinched violently, but at least the jolt of pain distracted him from his increasingly miserable train of thought. He glanced to his right and got an apologetic glance from Mitchell, just before his friend spoke up.

"Annie and I may be able to help," he announced. Loki listed another emotion as part of his current range: a sickening flush of wretchedness at his own inability to see or hear Annie. Forcing the awareness out of his mind, he made himself listen to Mitchell as he said, "Annie just pointed out that she should be able to pass through the walls into the cells to look for Coulson."

"Great, but even if she could get the door open, he can't see her," Tony objected. "Someone is still going to have to be down there, to lead him to the rest of us, or he might end up going the wrong way or something. If we end up chasing around after him, that's an excellent way for us all to get caught."

"True," Mitchell said. "But I can go with her. That way, we'd be exposed for half as long as we would be if one of you lot went looking for him. Less."

"What are you talking about?" Bruce asked. "Annie might be invisible, but you aren't."

Mitchell looked amused. "Do you know why vampires aren't Michael Palin-type world travelers? It's not those nonsensical legends about home soil-- it's because we can't get a passport."

Tony's eyes widened. "Cameras can't record your image!"

"Exactly," Mitchell said cheerfully. He glanced at Steve, and added, "If a guard comes blundering in, I'll restrain myself. Promise."

"How would you do against a pulse rifle?" Clint asked, more curious than anything.

Mitchell shrugged. "Better than the rest of you, I reckon. Seeing as I'm dead already." He paused, then offered a mischievous grin. "Now, if the guard happened to be armed with a sharp number two pencil, that could ruin my whole day." The remark surprised a giggle out of Loki, and Mitchell directed his smile in Loki's direction before turning back to Steve. "We're not Avengers, but we can help."

"And we're grateful," Steve assured him. He looked around. "Okay. There's only so much room in the helicopter, and we can't leave the lodge unguarded anyway, what with Cray and Strange here-- "

"And Pepper," Tony spoke up.

"Exactly. If SHIELD does figure out where we are and swoop in, we'll need someone to evacuate Pepper and George, and warn the rest of us. Bruce and Natasha, are you okay with staying here?" Both of them nodded. Steve hesitated, then added gently, "Loki, you're staying, too." It was not a request.

"I am?" Loki tried to keep his tone composed, matter-of-fact, but of course he immediately found himself wondering what he had done to be excluded, fighting the familiar sensation of being rejected. He tried to convince himself that it was only his current emotional volatility that made him feel so forsaken, but the way the feeling settled around his heart like an old companion made him think it was not, perhaps, only his current state that was causing him to react so strongly.

"Yes," Steve said, as though he genuinely regretted it. "You've done your part already, and you were great, but I think it might be a little soon to ask any more of you. Especially to go back into the confinement level of a SHIELD building."

As soon as Steve said it, Loki realized he was right: the sensation of terror that gripped him at the idea was almost ungovernable. He could actually _smell_ the cell where he had been confined. Although he had no memory of anything other than the cell, it was entirely possible that even being in the corridors on the confinement level might make it difficult for him to think clearly enough to be of any use to his companions. It was indeed true, that he was apt to suffer an inconvenient breakdown if he tried to make himself face up to too much at once. For instance, if he happened to encounter one of the guards who looked like a giant ant-- in spite of his affection for real ants-- there was really no telling what he might do.

Some time before, Steve had been the victim of a curse that afflicted him with fear, and he gazed at Loki with understanding as well as command. "You stay here and make sure George is all right, when he… when he comes out of it, okay?"

Loki nodded, and Mitchell caught his eye with a grateful nod. Very well.

"Okay," Loki agreed, trying to sound perfectly unruffled, as if he did not feel like an invalid or a child. Thor clapped him on his good shoulder and he took what comfort he could from the gesture, reminded himself that, if one was commencing a mission underwater, it made sense to only take along whichever team members could swim.

Or could transform themselves into something that swam, of course. At the moment, magical aids to his courage were out of his reach as well.

The participants in the raid left for the Stark helipad, and Loki found himself at a loose end. Pepper was in the study, as she had been all day, connected to the secure communication server that belonged to Stark Industries. Apparently, her underlings believed her to be in Geneva. Loki did not disturb her, nor did he trail after the two remaining team members who had genuine assignments.

After a moment of indecision, Loki found himself climbing the stairs to the little room under the eaves where Cray was being held. He did not know exactly why he was doing this, or what he expected to accomplish, but before he was able to give the matter any clear thought, his hand was turning the key and pushing the door open.

Cray did his best not to look terrified at the sight of Loki, and failed. The evidence of the agent's fear probably should have been more gratifying than it actually was. Had Loki still been chokingly angry, he probably would have enjoyed the expression on the man's face and then felt guilty about it afterwards. As it was, his mood had taken yet another violent swing, and now he found himself feeling merely rather sorry for him.

Particularly since, with his hands cuffed behind himself to a sturdy bracket in the wall, Cray had to be feeling rather extraordinarily vulnerable. Loki found himself feeling a certain… well, fellow-feeling, for lack of a better term, ironic though the emotion was.

"Hello," Loki greeted the prisoner, unable to summon the energy to think of a better opening gambit.

"What do you want?" Cray demanded, apparently feeling his self-respect demanded some show of defiance.

Loki, who understood that impulse rather well, stepped inside the door and leaned against the frame.

"Not to harm you, for one thing. At least, if I can help it," he amended, after a moment's reflection. "I would like to know, though-- _were_ you one of the agents who abducted me? I keep thinking you look familiar, but it may be that my mind is playing tricks upon me."

Cray looked trapped-- well, of course, he actually _was_ trapped, come to think of it, but he was obviously remembering Loki's admonition not to try to lie to him. Just to make sure, however, Loki added,

"There is still no point in attempting deceit; I have a rather well-developed ability to detect dishonesty in others. We all have our little talents. As I have said, I have no real desire to harm you-- " at least, at the moment he did not, and he believed he would have the sense to withdraw if he found the urge coming upon him "-- I would just like to know."

Cray looked at him very strangely. "Why?" he asked, and now the agent's voice held less bluster, was a genuine question.

Loki shrugged, an awkward gesture, what with his current slouch and the still-annoying pain in his right shoulder. "It was a very disagreeable experience, what was done to me. I suppose I would like to know why it happened."

Cray's expression was now a sight to behold, as he tried to decide what to say. It occurred to Loki, with a small feeling of achievement, that he had apparently managed to make himself real to at least one representative of SHIELD. At least, the agent no longer looked purely frightened, more as though he was beginning to realize whatever rationalizations he had used to justify what had been done to Loki now sounded perhaps a little thin.

"You were considered a threat," Cray explained finally. Loki could not tell whether Cray was distancing himself from the decision because he thought it might be safer, or because he genuinely no longer wanted to be associated with it. A little of both, perhaps.

"To who?" Loki asked, genuinely curious. There were, of course, other emotions at play, but curiosity was uppermost at the moment.

"To… You're an alien, you have magical powers, you're not… you're not _human_ ," Cray explained, his voice faltering.

Loki frowned. "But humans have many peaceful interactions with non-human species. One has only to visit the local parks, to see the humans with their dogs. In Britain, at any rate, there seems to be a great deal of affection between-- "

And then he realized what Cray was actually saying. Let himself realize it, rather, since it was already abundantly clear.

"Ah. You thought I was a monster, and therefore needed to be stopped before I did something dreadful. Is that not it?"

Cray might have offered some response, but if he did, Loki did not notice. Of course, wiping out monsters was defensible. It did not even count as harming anyone, not really. One could split hairs and offer justifications about the difference between wiping them out entirely, or merely torturing them indefinitely, and whether one route was more defensible than the other, but the point was that it did not really matter what one did to a monster.

"Well," he remarked quietly, "that is indeed an unpleasant thing to discover. Although I suppose one could simply call it a taste of my own medicine." He focused on Cray, noting distantly that the man really did look alarmed now, and said in an abstracted tone, "Do not worry. No one is going to harm you."

Then he left the room and locked the door behind himself.

He was outside on the driveway before he was aware of even leaving the house. Above him, the moon still hung full and bright in the sky. All around him were the wilds of the Highlands, and it crossed his mind to simply start walking and not look back. He discarded the notion almost immediately: after all the trouble his brother, his own friends, and his brother's friends had already been put to trying to help him, it would be a poor show of gratitude if he were to do a thing like that. Besides, that was not an end to anything, simply walking away. It was not as if the others would not come looking for him. It was not as if he could simply make himself vanish.

He could turn himself back in to SHIELD but, if he knew Thor, such an action would simply lead to another rescue effort, and this time it was likely someone would be hurt. He was not quite selfish enough to risk harm to his brother again, just to appease his own conscience.

And besides, the fact SHIELD had apparently arrested Agent Coulson, had made him disappear too, confirmed that the agency was not exclusively hunting down those who deserved their fate. What the others were doing now, what they intended to do to stop the agency in the future, all these things were justifiable and necessary, whether Loki deserved to be the recipient of their aid or not. He did not, but others certainly did.

So. He would not do anything rash or melodramatic or stupid, and put everyone else in jeopardy.

But at some point he was going to have to pay for what he had done to the Jotun, because apparently if he did not do so voluntarily, the universe would simply continue to conspire to make him do so against his will. And if he was going to have to pay one way or another anyway, he should at least try to ensure the Jotun knew about it, in case there could be any healing for them in knowing his fate, in deciding upon it.

As if they, too, were real.

That, he decided, was a thought for another time, for when things had returned to some sort of normal state. When whatever he did to make amends would not be an expression of disrespect to those who had gone to such trouble to show him this undeserved kindness.

Loki looked at the lodge, at the cozy light spilling from its windows.

Then he walked around the back of the building to the storage bunker, let himself through the outside door to the inside space where the second, secure door was. Inside the bunker itself, he could still hear snarling and howling and scratching as an inhuman creature rampaged.

"George," he called softly. There was a moment of silence from within, as if he had been understood, before the raging creature went back to his efforts to escape, to run amok, to do things George would never cease to regret. Loki looked at the bolts on the door, and a thought crossed his mind.

It was a thought he was neither desperate enough, nor selfish enough, to act upon.

"I'm right here, George," he said, just in case the being inside could comprehend.

Then he leaned against the heavy steel door and slid down it to the concrete floor, wrapped his arms around his knees, and waited for his friends to return.

~oOo~

Coulson was, for lack of anything more stimulating to do, whiling away the time by making up a mental roster of his All-Time, All-Seen (by himself, in person), All-Star professional football team. He had already inspected the cell in minute detail and was resigned to the fact he wasn't going to be able to get out unless someone opened the door for him.

And so: his personal All-Star team, at least the starting lineup, composed entirely of athletes he had personally seen play. He had gotten along to the position of quarterback, and was trying to decide whether Anthony Calvillo's status as the all-time passing leader in pro football gave him the edge over Joe Montana and his Super Bowl victories, when he was suddenly aware of a chill in the air around him.

Football forgotten, Coulson looked around. For a second there, he almost thought…

The door slid open and a tall wiry figure stepped inside. Coulson had to blink once before recognizing him out of context, and then he said,

"Hello, Mitchell."

"Hi," replied Loki's Irish vampire housemate. "Care to get out of here?"

Coulson didn't have to be asked twice. He reached down to pick up his shoes, which he had removed after discovering what an annoying experience it was to shuffle around without shoelaces, and swiftly followed Mitchell out of the cell.

The elevator stood open, closed behind them without Mitchell touching a button, and began to rise. Coulson noted that, though they had begun on the subterranean level, the indicator lights insisted the elevator was descending from the tenth floor. He took a moment to ponder that before asking,

"Stark?"

"Yes," Mitchell replied. "He'll be so pleased to see you."

"For once, I could almost say 'likewise,'" Coulson admitted. Mitchell, suspecting this was the Coulson equivalent of arms thrown around your neck with tearful thanks, smiled to himself. Coulson's next words, however, startled him: "Is Annie with you?"

Mitchell blinked. "Yes. She went into the cells to see which one you were in. Could you-- ?"

"I felt something," Coulson said briefly. He looked around. "Thank you, Annie."

The elevator stopped at ground level and Mitchell led the way to the agents' entrance, which also swung open as though they were in the chamber of horrors in a movie, then into the tunnels that led outside.

As they stepped inside, black shape rose before them. Mitchell shoved Coulson behind him-- Coulson didn't know whether he was more annoyed or amused by the gesture. He might even have been touched-- and let out a noise that sounded like a combination of a hiss and a roar. Coulson had seen, once, what it looked like when the cheerful Irish kid let the vampire out, and although he was not much inclined toward fear, he wasn't sorry he was standing behind Mitchell at the moment.

"Cool it, Mitchell," came the unruffled voice of Clint Barton, as he stepped out of the shadows, an arrow fixed in his bow.

Mitchell went back to his normal size, much like a cat who has fluffed up in a threat display and then thought better of it. He cocked his head and looked at the arrow.

"Please tell me that thing's not made of wood," he requested.

"Nah. Carbon-aluminum composite," Clint replied. "Hey, Coulson, good to see you." This was the Clint Barton version of arms-around-the-neck-with-tearful-greetings, and Mitchell suspected Coulson knew it. Mitchell looked away and tried not to smirk. Annie, confident she was not seen or heard, laughed outright.

Emotional greetings dispensed with, Clint went on, "Let's get out of here, shall we?"

"Good idea," Coulson agreed, already following Clint, who was already heading back down the tunnel. Mitchell brought up the rear, on the principle that anyone who sneaked up behind them and grabbed him was in for a nasty shock.

All three of them ran toward the exit.

~oOo~

Loki woke to quiet inside the bunker behind him. For a moment he was disoriented to find himself cold and stiff and sitting on a concrete floor, head resting on his pulled-up knees. Then he remembered George, realized the moon must have set, tried to remember whether it was actually safe to open the door before sunrise. As much as he wanted to check on his friend, he knew that if he accidentally released the creature, George would be the one to suffer, one way or the other.

He had opened his mouth to call to his friend when he realized he was not alone. There was someone else here, half-hidden in shadows, standing just inside the door that led to the outer world, looking down at him.

"Dr. Strange?" Loki said softly.

"Loki," the other man replied, and stepped forward with a smile. It occurred to Loki that it was not a particularly nice smile.

It also crossed Loki's mind that he had never asked, had hardly even wondered, what Dr. Strange's role was with relation to either the Avengers or himself. He knew Strange was not an Avenger, but had assumed he was in the same sort of category as Pepper: a trusted friend or colleague of Tony or one of the others.

This was unlike Loki, who was ordinarily suspicious as well as naturally very curious. Under normal circumstances one or the other of these traits would have led him to question the presence of the doctor long before now.

Obviously, he was not at the moment in anything that could be described as "normal circumstances." Certainly his mind was not working in anything like its typical fashion, as illustrated by that incident, now embarrassing to reflect upon, in which he had mistaken some of his rescuers for assassins and had done his best to either escape from or inflict serious injuries upon them.

He still had fairly clear memories of having been extremely frightened, although he could no longer remember exactly what the fear felt like-- it was, he reflected, much like the way the body does not physically remember pain. He knew he had been in a great deal of both recently, but could not recall specifically what either had felt like. In both cases, the fear and the pain, the sensations had flooded him past his ability to cope with them. The pain had gone on for so long that conscious thought and reason had eventually left him, leaving the physical shell to manage as best it could.

As for the fear, he had finally gathered enough wit to realize on some level that his terror was not rational, and had, pathetic as it was to admit, temporarily abdicated all responsibility for himself. Instead, he had clung to Thor, trusting his brother not only to protect him, but also to decide for him whether he should or should not really be afraid. On the one hand this was humiliating, but, if he was honest with himself, Loki would admit to being very glad he actually did have someone who could be relied upon to take this role. He was convinced that if he had not, his irrational terror would have been of much longer duration.

As grateful as he was to and also for Thor, it had still been extremely distasteful. His emotional outburst at the sight of George and Mitchell had not been inspired solely by pleasure at seeing them again: he had also been relieved beyond words when he looked at them and was able to tell, indeed to know beyond any shadow of doubt, that they were his friends and there was no need for him to be afraid of them.

As for the other people here he had never met before, well, he was for once operating on the assumption that they could be trusted simply because Thor, Steve, and Tony apparently did. Loki was accustomed to being unable to trust his own _motives_ , but for the last few days he had also been unable to rely upon the evidence of his own senses or deductive powers, either. And so he had accepted Dr. Strange as some sort of medical advisor or colleague and had not thought any more about it.

As Strange approached him, however, Loki was remembering that nobody in the house really seemed terribly friendly toward the doctor. He should have noticed that, he was generally far more sensitive than this to subtleties with regard to the interactions of others. Indeed, for obvious reasons, Loki usually very quick to identify the outcast in any group. In this case, he had not even noticed the chill that surrounded Strange, up until now too tired and too confused to bother about it very much.

As the unpleasant smile came closer, however, Loki began to wish he had locked the outside door behind himself before he fell asleep. He also began to wonder what in the Nine Realms Strange could possibly want from him.

Strange stopped before he got so close that Loki would feel the need to react to his presence-- Loki was quite sure the distance was deliberately calculated-- then moved over to the wall and sat down in a posture that approximated Loki's. This also felt deliberate. Loki unlaced his arms from around his knees, sat cross-legged on the floor with his hands loosely folded in his lap, and asked, as casually as he could make the words come out,

"You wish to speak to me?"

"I do," Strange replied, equally casually, shuffled his position as though uncomfortable, and ended up once again mimicking Loki's posture. There was something rather amusing about Strange's efforts to manipulate Loki's reaction to him, to use such a gross method of forcing a feeling of connection.

At the same time, it was so openly calculating that Loki could only think Strange was purposely giving himself away, so that Loki could congratulate himself on spotting one trap, only to fall into another.

He did not bother changing his posture again: there were only so many ways one could minimize the discomfort of sitting on a concrete floor and he had no desire to get himself into a position he would like even less. Nor did he speak. Instead, he merely inclined his head slightly, and waited.

For a moment, he thought Strange might also decide to wait it out, to turn this into some sort of power play in which he who speaks first, loses. Loki had spent centuries associating with the friends of his brother, none of whom had ever had any desire to converse with him, to address him first, or to respond when he talked to them. He had not been very old when he realized he did not like the feeling of being an anxious supplicant, entreating another to respond to him, and he had taught himself to be content with silence unless the other person spoke first. If this meant he did not speak to anyone except his mother for days at a time, well, so be it.

As he grew older, he had learned there were times when it was wisest to make the first overture, and indeed in recent months he had become accustomed to perfectly ordinary social discourse, with no underlying currents of control or power to worry about. He found his present life far preferable to the walking-on-eggshells circumstances of his past, but he could revert to the old ways if need be. Having made the first move in this case when he recognized Strange, Loki now had no objection to sitting quietly until George woke up or the others came back. If Strange had come to speak to Loki, Strange would have to do so.

And, eventually, he did.

"You really are the most fascinating little creature," Strange remarked, and his voice sounded completely different from the way it had up until this point: the cheerful, interested tenor suddenly exchanged for a husky undertone that oiled and oozed. It was evident that he knew Loki was on the alert, and he had abandoned all subterfuge. Loki felt the muscles stiffen across his back in response, but he continued to hold his peace.

Strange did not seem to mind this, indeed it was quite possible he preferred to talk rather than to have to listen to another, or pretend to.

He went on, "Such an intriguing combination of the most laughable weaknesses-- really, to be so attached to a thing like the beast behind that door! To succumb to the most commonplace fault of the abandoned child, and grow up to be a liar! To care so much about that dolt you pretend to be your brother!-- and the most astonishing resilience. You should never have drawn another sane breath, after what that inhibitor did to you. Any of the fools who claim to have rescued you would have died weeks ago. And yet here you are. Oh yes, you're a little the worse for wear, certainly. But look at you: rational, functional, ambulatory… It's astounding."

"You take a flattering interest in my recovery," Loki remarked, mostly to be saying something, because they had reached the point at which Loki saying nothing implied Loki was too frightened or intimidated to speak at all.

Strange smiled again, and Loki felt as though he had turned over a stone to find many-legged things wriggling away from the light.

"I have taken a great deal of interest in the entire process," he said smoothly. Loki kept his face impassive, trying not to show what a jolt Strange's words had given him. That sounded... that sounded like Strange had been a party to what had happened to him. If that was the case, what could he possibly be doing here? Tony was treating him as a _guest_.

Loki grabbed his mind by the scruff of the neck before it could begin to spin him a saga of betrayal. There was a reasonable explanation for this. Tony and the others were keeping Strange close, so they could watch him. That had to be it.

Although apparently they were not watching him terribly closely, if he was out here with Loki and the still-helpless George.

Loki raised his chin slightly, realized that was a tell, and said quietly,

"Surely I have become less fascinating, now that I am more or less recovered."

"Rather less than more," Strange remarked. "Considering your magic has not yet returned."

Loki found his hand move up toward the burn on his chest, caught himself, and clasped them both in his lap again. "One must be patient," he said evenly.

"Why?" Strange countered. He leaned forward slightly-- Loki resisted the impulse to lean backward-- and extended his right hand, palm up. He closed his fingers, then opened them to reveal green flames flickering in his hand. Loki could almost smell the magic. He swallowed dryly.

Keeping his voice level with an effort, Loki asked, "Why are you showing that to me?"

"Consider it an offer," Strange replied. "Really, a being like you should not be wasting his talents so." He paused, as though waiting for Loki to protest. When Loki said nothing, Strange went on, "Protecting the humans and their brats from the predations of vampires? That's rather like protecting rabbits from the wolves, isn't it?"

"You sound like Herrick," Loki said, trying to sound amused. Inside, he was stalling for time, trying to get used to the presence of magic before him, so that he would not do something he would later regret when Strange finally got to the point.

"Herrick?" Strange prompted. Apparently, he did not really know everything. That was something of a relief.

"Yes, an old acquaintance. He, too, felt that humans served little purpose save as provisions for vampires."

"And did you agree with him?"

Loki shrugged. "It matters little whether I did; my friend Annie put a stake through his heart and now his opinions and he are all dust."

Strange shook his head, gently, as though disappointed. "I really would have expected you to aim higher. Look at your history: King of Asgard! Destroyer of the Jotun! The things you accomplished, alone, and with every hand against you!"

Loki tilted his head on one side and permitted himself a mocking little smile. "Ah, yes. But did it bring me _inner peace?"_

Strange laughed, but not as if he found Loki's little sally amusing. He passed his left hand over the flames flickering in his right. They vanished, then sprang back up when his hand passed the other way.

"I could restore you right now. We could do great things," Strange offered.

"'Terrible, yes-- but great,'" Loki replied softly.

"Exactly," Strange said, leaning forward avidly, and apparently unaware Loki had just quoted a children's movie to him. "We could share power. Nothing could withstand us."

 _Us_. That had once been the most potent, the most alluring, word in any language: the idea, the _offer_ , that Loki could genuinely be part of a _we,_ of an _us_. The protective charms that had helped restore Loki's sanity after his fall from the first Bifrost had also helped him find an _us_ to belong to, although his understanding of the spell was that it had genuinely been up to him to accept the offer. He could, theoretically, have rejected the mostly-harmless beings who extended their friendship and gone stumbling off to fall in with, say, highwaymen. Or pirates.

Or with someone like Strange.

And it was not so much that Loki had a newly-developed sense of right and wrong. Honestly, growing up as a member of a royal family in an absolute monarchy, one did not exactly learn to distinguish Right from Wrong in the way it was understood by ordinary people. It was more a matter of Duty or Not Duty, if anything. What was Good for the realm versus what was Ill, and personal or individual considerations, whether related to yourself or to anyone else, were so secondary they were practically tertiary.

Loki was not the heir and so had not been trained quite so thoroughly as his brother in that way of thought, but no one had really bothered to teach him anything to replace it, either. It was possible that this explained why, since he could not make decisions of importance to the realm, Loki had developed the habit of considering only the effects of his decisions upon himself, on the principle that, since nobody else appeared to be looking out for his interests, he might as well do so himself.

He and his brother had both come rather late to the notion that the individual subjects of a monarch might have individual value. That particular little mortals, even, whose lives were so brief that you might miss them entirely if you turned your head for a moment, should still be allowed to live out those tiny spans in peace, rather than for instance falling prey to vampires.

And having grown up with the idea of Power consolidated in the person of a single monarch, Power itself had always seemed worth seeking for its own sake, rather than for what one might do with it. It had seemed a game, really. It had certainly made the customs of his new home, the campaigning and voting and the Houses of Parliament, filled with wrangling MPs trying to sway one another, trying to share power and perhaps find common purpose to accomplish something of value… all these practices were new to him, and confusing, and struck him as inefficient and troublesome and above all endlessly, wonderfully, hilariously _funny._ Only beings with a real sense of humour could possibly have come up with the idea of parliamentary government.

And here was Strange, holding out a handful of magic and making his offer of unlimited power.

It was, again, not so much that Loki had a sense of Right and Wrong. It was more that his conscience now sat on his shoulder, black and heavy like Muninn or Huginn, the ravens who served as the eyes and ears of Odin, watching everything he did, always ready to punish him when he went wrong. He was beginning at least to be able to predict what actions of his would later lead to a feeling like the beak of a raven in his heart, and the feeling of wishing he could take back something that could not be undone.

And it was also that he knew perfectly well what an offer to "share" meant, when it came from a being like Strange. It meant, "come, assist me in my devious ends, allow me to use whatever talents or powers you have, and then when it goes wrong you can shoulder all of the blame." He'd done it himself as a child, when he could persuade anyone to join him, although in fairness those who meted out blame usually knew perfectly well it was all Loki's fault and acted accordingly. After a time or two, of course, the continuing assumption that it was all Loki's fault (which, honestly, sometimes it still was) led to those in charge acting accordingly without investigating the circumstances very closely.

This was probably how, if one was not careful, one could end up bound to a rock by the entrails of one's child, while venom dripped into one's eyes until the universe ended.

It certainly meant one would have to be several kinds of a fool, to trust an offer like Strange's, or to assume one could manipulate the circumstances to come out ahead. There were offers it was safer simply to reject outright. Loki had already had all the experience he could stand of the punishments of SHIELD or any agency like them.

He dragged his eyes from the green flames, let his lips pull back from his teeth. "What answer could I possibly give, to an offer like that? Particularly since I know exactly the sort of tender concern you feel for my welfare."

Strange sat up straight, closed his hand, and the magical fire vanished. Loki resolutely did not let himself feel it as a loss.

"You're even beginning to _think_ like one of them," Strange taunted, still with that nasty smile.

"I am certainly thinking like a being who has no desire to spend the rest of his existence waiting for Ragnarok," Loki agreed. "And as you are openly seeking a stooge to use and to then, what is the expression, take the fall for you, I suggest you look elsewhere."

Strange let out an uncouth sound, almost a snort. "I suppose you believe these Avengers, this imaginary brother of yours, these inhuman creatures, feel any kind of real concern and friendship for you. That is remarkably stupid, for a being of your supposed intelligence."

Loki tried not to let the dart land in the fertile part of his soul where doubt still lurked, lying in wait to attack him unawares. He replied evenly,

"Whether they feel genuine concern for me, or merely wish to put me to use, the end result so far has been to my benefit. Or do you really think I prefer the collar and madness to my current condition?"

"There is an expression, that he who would greatly deserve must greatly dare," Strange said.

"Indeed. The question, from my point of view, is: 'greatly deserve' _what_ , exactly?" Loki countered. "And if the answer is, to greatly deserve once again to have my powers stripped and my person subjected to torment, I think I will decline your offer."

Strange stood. "I really am disappointed. For the God of Mischief to turn out to have such a thoroughly _bourgeois_ attitude toward ambition."

"I am not sure what you just said," Loki shrugged, "but I believe I shall take it as a compliment."

Strange sneered, and then vanished in a flash of green. Loki, left behind with his heart pounding, was almost certain he had done the right thing.

And he wanted, very much, to have a little talk with Tony Stark.


	8. Chapter 8

Clint, Mitchell, Coulson and Annie were about halfway up the tunnel when the solid steel gate dropped into place and cut them off. It came down so close to Clint that it actually knocked the arrow out of his bow. Mitchell was over a hundred and twenty years old, and before becoming a vampire he had been a soldier, but Clint still came out with a couple of words Mitchell had never heard before.

"This wasn't on the floorplans, I take it?" Coulson asked.

"No," Mitchell said.

"Stark always was overconfident," Coulson said calmly. "I knew it'd catch up with him one of these days, but I always planned to be as far away as possible when it did. Annie?" he added, glancing around as if checking on the welfare of someone he couldn't even see.

"Gone for help," Mitchell said briefly.

"Good," Coulson said, even more briefly, as the sound of running feet began to be heard in the near distance. Clint notched another arrow in his bow, and Mitchell glanced at him.

"We're not killing anyone, remember," he warned.

"Steve should have known better than to ask that of me," Clint growled. Mitchell gave him a smile composed entirely of teeth.

"Of _you?_ " he retorted, and then the tunnel was full of black-uniformed, helmeted guards. Mitchell stepped forward, placing himself between the guards and his two human companions. The ant-like guard in the lead raised his rifle.

"Put your hands up and stay where you are," he ordered. The design of the helmet, full-face and with air filters and a gas mask, also necessitated a device built in to facilitate verbal communication. The result was that the guard sounded like one of the stormtroopers in _Star Wars_. It crossed Mitchell's mind that it really was a good thing Loki had stayed back at the lodge: if he had any memory at all of a voice like that ordering him away from the cell door, for instance, you couldn't blame him for panicking if he heard it again.

Somewhat to the surprise of Clint and Coulson, Mitchell complied, raising his hands but otherwise adopting a fairly relaxed posture.

"All right, let's just calm down a little," he suggested, his Irish lilt slightly more pronounced than it normally was. He made a conciliatory gesture with his still-raised hands, and took a step forward. "Surely we can talk about this?"

The guard did not bother to warn him again: there was an unimportant-sounding "huff," rather like the one you get when you drop a match onto charcoal soaked in lighter fluid, then a flash, and Mitchell was hit directly in the chest by a pulse of energy.

It turned out Mitchell had been wrong when he guessed that a pulse rifle's blast would have no effect on him. As far as the other two could tell, the impact hurt just enough to really, really piss him off.

"Now, there was no need of that," Mitchell said, in a husky tone that suggested his ability to communicate verbally was undergoing a drastic reduction. He lowered his hands and continued moving, head tilted aggressively forward. Neither Clint nor Coulson could see his face, but neither of them had any doubt at all what he looked like at the moment.

Just for a second, there was a sort of shuffle in the ranks, as though the first row of guards were momentarily uncertain they were really being paid enough to deal with this kind of shit. And then training took over, but by that time Mitchell had grabbed the rifle that shot him and wrestled it out of the grip of the man holding it. The guard grabbed Mitchell's arm and tried to twist it, only to find the skinny Irishman had a hand of iron on his throat. Mitchell almost casually tossed the man into his comrades, and then shot the next one who stepped forward.

To some extent, the steel gate was actually helpful, because it at least protected their backs, made it hard for anyone to get behind them. To some extent, the sheer number of guards in the tunnel was also helpful, because they got in each other's way and were unable to use their own rifles effectively.

The admonition not to kill anybody was... not helpful. At such close range Clint wasn't able to use his bow anyway and had to go to hand-to-hand, along with Coulson. Under more normal circumstances he might have had some luck with a knife, since the uniforms were not full body armor and had vulnerable spots. Lacking that, he and Coulson resorted to tumbling the guards as they charged, which really didn't do much but buy them a little time.

Mitchell was at even more of a disadvantage, since a hand-to-hand situation, for a vampire, generally instinctively turns into a fangs-to-throat one almost immediately. It really was just as well the guards' uniforms were designed to cover the neck securely enough to avoid leading Mitchell into temptation. Instead, he hung onto the pulse rifle, which was designed to immobilize rather than kill, firing it with the businesslike efficiency of someone who has some experience in close-range combat-- possibly fighting trench-to-trench. In fact, if anyone had been watching, they might have noticed Mitchell instinctively resort, several times, to jabbing his closest adversaries in the midsection with the muzzle, as though bayoneting them, before he remembered to pull the trigger.

All things considered, they were giving a good account of themselves. Three against multitudes still wasn't going to last forever. In fact, it wasn't going to last very long at all.

Coulson went down first, twitching, as a blast caught him in the chest. Clint hooked a foot around him and pushed the fallen agent behind himself. Mitchell, in what he would later concede was a moment of pure spite, returned fire and blasted the guard who had shot Coulson, knocking him down and temporarily out. Clint kicked the next man who moved forward in the throat, but by then sheer numbers had Clint and Mitchell backed up against the gate behind them, trying to both shield Coulson and avoid stepping on him.

As a result, though, they were able to feel the steel _heating up_ as they leaned on it.

Clint was the first to realize what that meant.

"Duck," he ordered, laid a hand on the back of Mitchell's neck and pushed him to the ground, just as the steel above their heads was seared open as though by a giant acetylene torch. The cutting torch then turned at a right-angle and moved downward to the floor, and a red metal hand reached in and peeled the steel back like aluminum foil.

Iron Man, his own blasters flaring, stepped through the hole and over Clint and Mitchell to confront the guards. Thor and Captain America were right behind him. The guards were visibly confused by the fact the arriving Avengers were obviously not on their side-- they might not have recognized Clint, but it was hard to miss Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor. The first two ranks went down like bowling pins before the remainder started to cope with the situation as it existed instead of as it was supposed to be.

"Get Coulson out of here!" Steve ordered Clint and Mitchell, using his shield to fend off blasts directed at them. Both the archer and the vampire were insubordinate by nature, but under the circumstances it really seemed wisest to do as they were told. They each grabbed one of Coulson's arms, hoisted him to his feet, and dragged him up the tunnel with the other three covering their escape.

By the time they got to the mouth of the tunnel, Coulson had revived enough to swear feebly at his two bearers. Ignoring his protests that he was perfectly fine and could stand on his own feet, dammit, Clint and Mitchell heaved him along the alley behind the SHIELD building, mutually blessing whoever had decided to camouflage the HQ by putting it in plain sight, surrounded by office buildings, rather than somewhere in the woods surrounded by razor wire.

Even at that, of course, there were cameras everywhere: both SHIELD surveillance and the municipal CCTV that had become ubiquitous. Mitchell, still carrying the pulse rifle, resorted to blasting a couple of them as they retreated back to the parking compound, picking up Annie, who'd been hanging nervously around outside reminding herself she was already dead, on the way.

In the parking area, Clint "liberated" a SHIELD SUV, dumped Coulson in the back with Mitchell and Annie scrambling in after him, and peeled down the alley to pick up Steve as the three rearguard Avengers emerged from the tunnel in a messy scramble that could not have gone unnoticed even in the deserted financial district in the middle of the night.

Steve piled into the back of the SUV as Thor and Iron Man took off into the sky, Clint took evasive maneuvers all the way back to the helicopter, and as the sun rose they were in the air, cloaked from radar, and on their way back to Scotland.

~oOo~

Coulson was fully recovered from the rifle blast by the time the helicopter landed at the lodge, which he demonstrated by yanking his arm away when Clint tried to help him inside.

"Will you stop that? I'm grateful to be rescued, but I'm hardly an invalid."

Really, Tony thought as he wearily disassembled the suit right in the entryway, it was just as well Coulson was okay. Because Natasha and Bruce appeared before the door closed behind them, and it was evident they did not have good news.

"Strange is gone," Natasha said bluntly.

"When?" Steve demanded. "And how?"

"'How' is probably 'by magic,'" Tony spoke up. "It's amazing he stuck around as long as he did without being stuffed into an inhibitor himself. He was bound to lose interest in us sooner or later."

"He's been gone at least a couple of hours," Bruce added.

"So we can assume he's reported our whereabouts to SHIELD by now," Steve said, obviously thinking out loud.

"If he cares enough to bother," Tony muttered.

"Can't take the chance," Steve replied, which pretty much went without saying. "Where are George and Loki?"

"Loki put George to bed at sunrise, maybe half an hour ago," Natasha said. "I think he's in the kitchen. Loki, I mean."

"Did he not go to bed at all?" Thor asked, his big-brother radar obviously pinging. Tony found himself uneasy as well, both at the information and the look on Natasha's face. Thor went on, "He is still not well-- "

"Yeah, and he's worse now than he was," Natasha informed him bluntly. "I have no idea what happened, but he's all kinds of freaked out again." At the looks on the others' faces, she clarified, "He didn't go for me or anything, but he's definitely worked up about something."

"Oh, great," Tony said, and led the way into the kitchen.

It might actually have been a better idea to send Thor in first, because as Tony stepped through the door he was aware of a blur of motion, and the next thing he knew a wicked-looking steak knife was embedded in the door frame, at eye level right next to his head. Thor grabbed Tony by the scruff of the neck, yanked him backward out of the way, and then he and Mitchell crowded forward.

"Loki, what's the matter?" Mitchell cried out.

Behind them, Tony could still hear the knife quivering in the door frame, and was able to see just enough of Loki's face to be grateful Thor's brother was still sore-shouldered and armed with a knife not designed for throwing. It was unclear from his expression whether his aim under the circumstances had been very fortunately good, or even more fortunately rather bad.

"Brother-- " Thor began in a soothing voice, and then made one of his lightning moves to catch Loki in his arms as the younger brother charged Tony. Loki twisted in Thor's hold, face a mask of rage, but was either unable to break free or else not trying as hard as he seemed to be. It was even possible the vise of Thor's arms was comforting, because instead of continuing to try to escape, Loki went still and simply shouted at Tony,

"You _left me_ with him! He was one of those who tortured me! Why would you _do_ such a thing?"

Oh, shit.

"Look, Loki, I can explain," Tony began weakly, wondering why every single well-intentioned move he made with regard to Thor's little brother kept blowing up in both of their faces. Glancing at Thor and Mitchell, he remembered they didn't know Strange's whole role either, and he realized he was going to have to convince more than just Loki. "He knew Coulson and I were going to check on you. To begin with, that's all I thought we were doing, just making sure you were in custody and safe. And then we realized what they were doing to you, and we had to get you out of there, so I _had_ to bring him with us, to keep him from telling SHIELD what had happened and where you were. I could control him in the Malibu house, but here we had to kind of depend on his continuing interest in the situation to keep him around."

"You should have _warned_ me. I _trusted_ him," Loki said, so distraught by now he didn't seem to know whether to sob or spit. _I trusted you_ was implicit in his voice. Loki was nearly as tall as Thor, but he suddenly looked much smaller than he really was. His face crumpled, and Tony remembered what Thor had told him once about Loki's breakdown back on Asgard: the main contributing factors had been grief, anger, and betrayal at a level he was unable to cope with.

Obviously, being let down by a recent acquaintance like Tony wasn't treachery on the same scale as believing your own parents were more or less plotting against you, but everyone had noticed the last day or so, particularly since he'd started talking again, that all of Loki's emotional reactions were out of proportion. He'd been trying hard to disguise them, but nobody had been fooled. It was pretty obvious he was prey to overreactions right now, and this was a situation where it made sense to be pretty upset anyway.

Strange had apparently been gone for a while, and it was clear he and Loki had had some sort of confrontation first. Whatever had happened, Loki had quite obviously spent the whole time since then stewing and working himself into a state over it. At the moment, as far as Tony could tell, "hysterical" was a drastic understatement to describe his mental state.

Not that you could blame him in any way for that. Tony sure couldn't. He also couldn't convince himself that any explanation he might offer would do a single thing to help.

"Did he harm you in any way?" Thor demanded. Oh yeah, Thor was definitely going to kick Tony's ass before this was over. The cockroach on Tony's shoulder was practically looking forward to it.

"He asked me to _join_ him." Loki had apparently picked a reaction and was frankly sobbing by now. Tony almost wished he was still trying to stick a knife in him. "Was that some sort of _test?_ And what would you have done to me if I had failed?"

"Strange invited you to join him?" Coulson asked, pushing past Tony to stand next to Thor. Loki took a moment to register Coulson's presence, as if he was too tired and worked up to recognize him right away. Loki knew that Tony and Coulson had rescued him from SHIELD, but Coulson had the additional advantages of not being the person who designed the infernal technology in the first place, and not blundering every step of the way ever since. Some of the hysteria began to drain from Loki's expression as he nodded. Coulson went on, "Asked you to join him in what, exactly? Did he say he was planning something?"

"He offered to restore my magic," Loki explained, sounding exhausted. Thor looked startled, and even Tony felt a jolt. That had to be like someone offering to restore an amputated limb, and the fact Loki had not transmogrified Tony into a frog or a pile of ashes by now indicated he had turned Strange down. That had to mean there was something beyond hinky about how Strange had gone about making the offer.

Even at that, it must have been a hell of a wrench for Loki, and the fact he'd made the decision all by himself, in such a mixed-up emotional and mental state, argued he was perhaps not quite as cheerfully amoral as Tony had always kind of assumed.

"But you didn't take him up on it?" Coulson prompted.

Miserably, Loki shook his head. "He wanted... He spoke of sharing power over the realm, of _ambition_." He hesitated, remembering. "It sounded like he meant no good, and I did not wish... Not again." Thor tightened his grip briefly, and Loki seemed to recognize the gesture as an embrace as opposed to restraint. He leaned back slightly against his brother as he completed his explanation: "He spoke of humans in a way that reminded me of certain ambitious vampires I have known. It made me very uneasy. I wanted no part of him, or whatever plans he might have."

"And then he left?" Coulson asked.

"Vanished, yes," Loki agreed.

"He didn't give you any hint of what he might be up to next, or why he'd stuck around for so long, aside from watching you?" Loki shook his head. Coulson nodded, looking reassuringly, familiarly impassive and totally in control-- despite being unshaven, disheveled, and in shirtsleeves and sock feet. "Okay. You did good work." Coming from Coulson, that was pretty much a parade with a brass band, and Tony knew Loki knew it.

"Thank you," Loki murmured, slumping with exhaustion and reaction. Then he smiled feebly. "I am very glad to see you are safe." He glanced at Tony and added, suddenly shamefaced, "And I am sorry I threw that knife at you."

"I'm not," Tony muttered.

Thor, who was obviously aware time was passing and pursuit was on its way, spoke. "We must get George. Come." Thor, Loki, Mitchell and, presumably, Annie, left the kitchen.

As soon as they were gone, Coulson turned to the rest of the Avengers and announced, "That story doesn't make any sense."

"You think he's _lying?_ " Tony asked in disbelief. Tony, personally, would have bet several years off his life that Loki was being as honest as Loki, or anyone else for that matter, was capable of being. He had seemed way too genuinely worked up for his story to be fabricated.

"I know he's got a reputation," Steve spoke up, "and okay, I know he probably deserves it, but I'd be willing to swear he was telling the truth."

Coulson made a dismissive gesture. "I know _Loki_ was telling the truth. I'm sure the confrontation went down exactly the way he described it. But I _know_ Strange, at least as well as anyone at SHIELD does. And he's an arrogant pain in the ass, but I don't believe he's a megalomaniac." The agent paused for a moment, thinking. "He told me once, in that kind of sarcastic joking way he has, that he's like Professor Snape in the Harry Potter stories: he's not a _nice_ guy, but that doesn't make him a _bad_ guy." He shook his head. "There's something off about that whole interaction, and if we agree it's not Loki's account, then it must be Strange himself."

"I'll just add that to my list of weird things we're going to have to figure out," Tony grumbled. "I think there's room at the bottom of page seventy-two."

~oOo~

Thor brought Loki and his housemates back downstairs a few minutes later. George was still dazed with sleep and his werehangover, Mitchell looked terribly worried, Loki as if he was hanging on to his self-control with both hands, and Thor was resolute.

"If SHIELD is indeed coming to arrest us, there is only one way to ensure the safety of my brother and his friends," Thor announced. "I must remove them from this realm."

Loki was obviously jolted by Thor's words. He looked at his brother with an expression of wide-eyed disbelief and hissed, "Thor, I _can't_ \-- "

"Let me worry about that, brother," Thor said gently.

"But-- " Loki began desperately, and Tony remembered he had been banished from Asgard for his attack on Jotunheim. Apparently, Loki took the banishment very seriously. Considering the king who had banished him was his _father_ , Tony wondered whether Loki's panicky reaction said more about his current emotional state, his lifelong insecurity, or his old man's temper.

"I know you may not return to Asgard, at least not as things currently stand," Thor said calmly. "But are there not seven other realms? Something will be arranged. Trust me."

Generally, when someone said "trust me," Tony was inclined to do just about anything else but. Given the brothers' complicated personal history, though, Thor's request was likely to be genuine, and maybe even a question he badly needed to have answered.

And even as messed up as he was, Loki seemed capable of realizing what his brother was really asking for. He swallowed hard, and nodded. Thor patted his good shoulder, turned to his Avenger comrades, and said,

"I will return as soon as I am sure my brother is safe. SHIELD may be able to detect the action of the Bifrost, so it is best if we remove ourselves some distance from this abode before I call upon Heimdall."

"I doubt it'll make any difference," Tony said, "but thanks for the thought."

"That's good thinking, Thor," Coulson said.

"I am glad you find it so, Son of Coul," Thor said serenely. It had been quite some time since Thor had called Coulson by that name as anything but a joke. Tony had just had time to reflect that it was an odd time for Thor to be kidding, when Thor went on, "Because you are coming with us."

Coulson actually looked startled. "Oh no, I'm not."

"You are," Thor replied, calm and implacable. "You are in peril as long as you stay here. SHIELD considers you a replaceable part, of no more importance to them than my brother. This is a very stupid attitude for them to take, but nevertheless it is so. You will come with us."

"That's a great idea," Steve spoke up.

"Brilliant," Tony agreed, mostly to see the look on Coulson's face.

Coulson squared his shoulders. "I for damned sure will not-- "

"We have no time to argue about this," Thor announced, seizing him by the upper arm. Coulson apparently realized it would be pointless, as well as undignified, to struggle. Thor addressed his brother and his friends. "All of you, come with me."

Tony stood. "If you go out the kitchen door, there's a path through the woods that'll take you down to the seashore. Can your guy Heimdall pick you up there all right?"

"Certainly. We will make haste to put distance between ourselves and this abode," Thor announced. He headed for the door, dragging Coulson, who was flapping after him like the tail on a kite.

"Have a good trip," Tony called, waving. "Give our regards to Asgard!"

Tony might have been hallucinating, but he thought Coulson used his free hand to give him the finger as Thor hauled him through the door.

He was _positive_ that as they followed Thor, hustling George along between them, Loki and Mitchell looked suddenly far more cheerful than the situation actually warranted.

As soon as the last bus to Asgard had left the station, Tony turned to the rest of the Avengers.

"Okay. New plan, and it involves making ourselves scarce. I'll have to leave Cray someplace he can get to a police station and call for help. I made a backup plan in the helicopter on the way back, I'll fill you in as soon as I get Pepper."

"Get Pepper for what?" asked a voice from the doorway behind him, and Tony turned to see Pepper, wide awake, dressed, and with her face on. Of course, she was already up dealing with offices in Asia or whatever.

"For the next stop on our Magical Mystery Tour," Tony explained briefly.

~oOo~

The amusement engendered by Coulson's protests did not last long. Loki had traveled by Bifrost for his entire life, and this was the first time he had been frankly terrified by the process. It was not so much the travel that frightened him, as the prospect of arrival: Heimdall would surely bring them back to his observatory before consulting with Thor concerning where they should go next.

As Thor would no doubt argue, Heimdall's observatory was not technically within the borders of Asgard, but it was certainly part of the kingdom of the Allfather, and Loki was not at all sure Thor's technicalities were going to turn out the way his brother so confidently believed. Their father had been more than patient with Loki so far, even excusing one unexpected, unintentional, return to Asgard in the not-too-distant past, but Loki had survived as long as he had in part by knowing when to stop testing another's patience. He was still under an edict of banishment, and surely that meant he was supposed to actually conform to the terms, rather than flout them any time he needed assistance?

He did not have much time to fret about possibilities: seconds after the Bifrost opened, they were landing in the observatory, and Loki was suddenly aware of a hand gripping his left arm. For a moment he forgot all about his fears as he turned toward Annie who, thanks to the ambient magic of the non-Midgardian realms, was now as visible as anyone else.

"Hi," she said, almost as tearful with relief as Loki himself.

"Hi," Loki replied, leaning down toward her. Her lips weren't as cold here as they were on Midgard, he thought confusedly, and then the doors of the observatory slid open and Loki's head snapped up. Heart pounding, he turned to face the Allfather, striding in with his personal bodyguard behind him.

"Thor," Odin said briefly, cutting off any explanations by his elder son. As he passed him, however, he laid a hand on Thor's shoulder in the familiar gesture of affection and, perhaps, pardon. He then went directly to Loki, who was frozen in place, too overwhelmed by his own fears of what might happen next to even have the sense to bow his head to the king.

"Loki," Odin said, his voice surprisingly gentle, as he faced his younger son. He reached up to lay his left hand on Loki's right shoulder, noted the wince, and gripped firmly.

Loki bit his lip and braced himself as pain flared in his injured shoulder, but a second later the sensation turned to warmth that suffused his entire body, intensifying at the burn sites at his neck, chest, and extremities, and then ebbing away, taking the remaining pain with it. He had quite forgotten what it felt like, to not hurt anywhere.

Odin, looking into his face, recognized relief in Loki's expression. He loosened his grip, then the hand on Loki's shoulder slid up his neck, to the back of his head, and Odin pulled his younger son into an embrace that any onlooker could tell by its awkwardness was unaccustomed, but also very clearly heartfelt. It had taken Odin far too long to learn that his subtle younger son was quite unable to comprehend any but the most obvious expressions of affection, but having learned the lesson he had taken it to heart. As Loki tentatively wrapped his own arms around his father, Odin said quietly in his ear,

"We have been terribly worried about you."

Loki gulped and then just held on, partly embarrassed at how completely he seemed to have misread the situation, but mostly deeply relieved at the reception. He had spent too long anticipating rejection every time he approached his father to have let go of his ingrained fears just yet, but this time, at least, rejection was clearly not to be forthcoming.

After a moment, Odin used the hand on Loki's head to ruffle his hair as though he was a child again, and released him. Loki took a step backward, still anxious, but no longer looking quite so terrified as he had when Odin first approached him. Odin touched his arm once again as he turned to his elder son.

"Tell me," he said simply, a request rather than a command. Thor immediately launched into a composed and lucid account of the situation, finishing with,

"Until this new enemy, this SHIELD, is dealt with, it seemed to me impossible to ensure Loki's safety, or that of our friends, on Midgard, particularly since Loki's magic has not yet recovered. I therefore thought the wisest course was to remove them from the situation entirely, so their safety might be guaranteed and my attention, and that of the Avengers, could be concentrated upon the problem of SHIELD. I ask your assistance in finding refuge for them."

Odin nodded thoughtfully. "That was well thought of, my son." He cast his single blue eye over Mitchell, George, and Annie. "You are, of course, welcome here at any time." He went on to Coulson. "And my queen and I are in your debt." Finally, he looked again at Loki, who was, once again and as usual, aware of being the complicating factor, the one who ruined everything. Odin studied his expression and sighed. "You must understand, Loki, that your banishment is a matter of policy and politics, an effort to demonstrate Asgard's willingness to make peace with Jotunheim and its new ruler, a promise that never again will war be waged against non-combatants and innocents." Loki nodded, eyes filling with humiliating but remorseful tears. Odin went on gently, "Do not for a moment think it reflects my feelings for you as my son. What I should like above all things is to welcome you back to Asgard, back to the palace." Relieved as he was at his father's words, Loki was unable to suppress a shiver at the final remark, and Odin nodded. "I agree that, considering what went on in the past, even before our family disaster, the palace would not be the most wholesome environment for you, and probably never has been. Nevertheless, if I could remove all obstacles and ensure your happiness here, I would wish for nothing other than your return. That being impossible, at least for now, I will instead fall in with your brother's suggestion that sanctuary elsewhere be arranged."

Loki spoke up, uneasy at the implications: "It does not really make sense, Father, to spend diplomatic capital under these circumstances-- "

"Oh no," Odin interrupted calmly. "I intend to ask a personal favour." Loki's eyes widened: Odin _never_ asked personal favours of other rulers. Odin smiled. "Relations with Vanaheim have been friendly for centuries now. I am sure the Vanir king will not ask anything too outrageous in return. Now, it is ridiculous for you all to stand here upon the doorstep-- " he glanced at Coulson's feet-- "particularly since not all of you are even shod. Come."

Loki hesitated, and his friends looked at him and remained still, too. Odin glanced at Loki with an expression of affectionate exasperation. "It is unlike you to be so concerned with rules, my child. You and your friends will be temporarily quartered in the hall beyond the gates, where envoys have always stayed when they came to Asgard to negotiate the cessation of hostilities. That has always been held as neutral territory. You may stay there until you are provisioned, and your refuge has been arranged. Oh-- and your mother sent for, of course."

Loki could not think of anything he wanted less than to deprive himself of a visit, however, brief, with his mother. However, he was himself an old hand at splitting hairs and finding loopholes, and he knew perfectly well that loopholes sometimes have a way of tightening unexpectedly. He felt compelled to ask,

"Are you sure, Father, that it is worth the risk? If the Jotun learn of my reception-- "

"Particularly with matters as they now stand," Heimdall spoke for the first time. Loki wheeled to look at the Guardian. Heimdall had a way of holding his peace unless he considered speech to be vital, and that generally to do with the safety of the realm.

"What matters?" Loki asked. "As they stand _how?_ "

"Thank you, Heimdall," Odin said firmly. "I am quite aware of the situation."

"And what situation is that?" Loki persisted, keeping his voice down with an effort. Was he going to be responsible for worsening relations once again, for war, perhaps? "Father, it is really not worth-- "

"Loki," Odin interrupted, "I wonder if you really understand what you are saying. You keep saying 'it' is not worth this or that, not worth the risk. There is no 'it.' We are speaking of _you_. And _you_ , my child, are worth any amount of risk to me. Now, as much as I confess I have missed hearing you argue, I would ask you to stop." He smiled suddenly. "It is not as if old Odin One-Eye is not well known to be high-handed. I would as soon be high-handed in a good cause. Come."

Loki had been Odin's son for far too long not to know when further argument was pointless. He glanced at his friends, at the reassuring smile on the face of his brother, and at the foreboding expression on Heimdall's.

And then he fell in behind his brother and followed their father out of the observatory.


	9. Chapter 9

"Heimdall spoke of how matters stand with the Jotun. What did he mean?" Loki asked Thor, as soon as the Allfather's bodyguard had left them.

Thor shook his head. "I have no idea." At his brother's doubtful expression, Thor frowned. "Truly, Loki, I do not know. I have not spoken to Father about affairs of state in weeks. Anything could be happening, and I would not know of it."

Loki continued to look skeptical, not to say actually suspicious. "It is not like you and Father, not to be in one another's confidence."

Thor sighed, laid a hand on Loki's shoulder, and said quietly, "We had other matters to worry about. I was entirely absorbed in the search for you, and when I returned to Asgard it was only to bring our parents information about my progress. Father would not have cared to distract me with any of his other worries, and I confess matters of state were not foremost in any of our minds while you were missing."

Loki turned away, aware that to continue to argue would merely upset his brother, as well as make him appear ungrateful. And Thor was almost certainly telling the truth: for one thing, he was incurably honest. For another, one of the reasons he was still not quite ready to be king was that he could not always tell the difference between that which was important, and that which was merely personal.

For obvious reasons, Loki had no real complaints about this shortcoming. Indeed, he had come to realize that he shared it-- practically all the trouble Loki had brought upon himself and others, before his fall from the Bifrost, was a result of a very similar flaw in his own thinking, and also, on a less sinister note, he suspected he would be quite unable to put a theoretical "greater good" before the safety of, say, Thor or his housemates-- but he could not believe their father was prone to similar weakness. The Allfather would have been concerned about Loki, true, but not to the exclusion of issues of importance to the realm.

However, as he thought it over, Loki had to concede it would be like Father not to burden Thor with thoughts of these more urgent matters while Thor was focused on the smaller issue. It made sense, really, to assign someone else full responsibility for the search, leaving Odin free to concentrate upon whatever was going wrong concerning the Jotun. The fact it was _Thor_ whose time and attention was diverted from the more important matter really did suggest Father was genuinely, deeply concerned about Loki, which was… warming.

But. Loki was safe, and whatever was wrong now, between Asgard and the Frost Giants, was surely at least partly his fault. Mostly his fault. Almost certainly entirely his fault. And as much as he appreciated the kindness that motivated his father's efforts to conceal the truth from him, the Allfather should probably have remembered that concealing important truths from Loki had not, in the past, worked out to anyone's advantage.

A hand fell on Loki's shoulder again, and Loki found himself turned firmly around to face his brother.

"Whatever you are thinking," Thor warned, his eyes searching Loki's face, "stop. I did not bring you here so you could trade one peril for another. Please, just… don't."

Loki felt his mouth curve into a reassuring smile. "Of course not, brother. Aside from everything else, there is little enough I could do that would not simply make matters worse."

Thor looked suspicious, but made a show of accepting Loki's words at face value. That was sufficient, for now. Loki had no desire to worry his brother more than was necessary.

However, he also had no intention of walking away from a muddle of his own making, without making any effort to clean it up. Loki was perhaps not naturally suited to his Midgardian role of custodian, but he did have his professional pride.

~oOo~

Well, at least it was warm here, Tony reflected, as he raised his aching eyes from the screen of his laptop and focused on a seagull bobbing in the blue Caribbean water. The Scottish house was more comfortable for large groups, but as Willy Wonka said, their little group was getting smaller by the minute: Clint and Natasha had gone underground, Bruce was remarkably adept at hiding out-- as long as nothing made him angry-- and Tony, Steve, and Pepper had retreated to another of Tony's little hideaways, all white sand and blue ocean water.

It would have been very romantic, except there were three of them-- which, okay, that wasn't necessarily automatically a problem for Tony-- and one of them spent all _her_ time running Stark Industries by remote control while the other two spent all _their_ time trying to find a crack in SHIELD where they could put a wedge. Or a lever, so to speak. Who was the guy who said that given a lever, he could move the world? Well, Steve and Tony just wanted to move a single damn agency.

Tony knew it was too early to be so worried, they'd been in the new hideout for less than forty-eight hours, he'd spent nearly all of that time ransacking SHIELD's computer system and reviewing the results of what he'd found with Steve. He knew he had to sleep sometime. He just…

A plate landed at his elbow, with a sandwich on it cut into four neat triangles. Tony glanced up, startled, at the concerned face leaning over him.

"You know, Tony, none of this is your fault," Steve said firmly.

"What? No-- I mean, of course. Of course it's not. What are you talking about?"

Steve reached over and took the laptop away, set it gently on the other side of the table, and pushed the plate with the sandwich on it in front of Tony.

"I'm talking about your obsessive need to fix this problem _right this minute_. I'm talking about you not eating or sleeping or _showering_ \-- and Tony, it's hot here. You _need_ to shower. And eat. And sleep. Pepper and I are both worried about you. What SHIELD is up to, whatever it is, is bad. We get that. And what they did to Loki was really bad. And yes, they used one of your designs to do it-- "

"And I just let them," Tony, or perhaps the cockroach in the fedora, replied flatly. It was an unexpectedly huge relief, to say it out loud. Steve pulled out a chair and sat down, not quite in Tony's line of vision but where Tony just had to turn his head to see him. "Sure, I kicked up a fuss on behalf of my company, but I should have done more. I should have raised hell. I should have known that SHIELD would _use_ a device like that. They've probably already made a dozen knockoffs. Those other prisoners with the shaky IDs, the ones we found out about when we were looking for Coulson? There could be half a dozen other perfectly harmless magic users locked up, being tortured and hoping to die, right now. Some of them might already be dead, there's no guarantee they're as tough as Loki, or as lucky as he is. I _made_ that device. I _designed_ it. And then I just let them _take_ it, I tried to convince myself they were just keeping it under wraps when I knew, I _knew_ , an agency like SHIELD would always have a use for a thing like that. And I mean, I _like_ Loki. I would _never_ have done a thing like that to him, not deliberately. Not that he'll probably ever believe it."

"You're afraid he blames you," Steve said, and he had to have been talking to Pepper, because he sounded like something out of one of her reflective management manuals. "Active listening," or whatever the hell it was called. Tony had always thought it sounded like consultants making way too much money, but of course Steve, being Steve, had hit the nail on the head, had heard exactly what Tony was saying without Tony having to say it. And, to mix his metaphors a little more, Steve had just stepped right over the fence, picked up the one thing Tony really didn't want to look at, and was holding it out to him.

"Yeah," Tony mumbled, because as much as he didn't want to look directly at the idea, he knew he was going to have to, eventually, and part of him was grateful to Steve for making sure he didn't end up doing it when he was alone.

Steve just waited until Tony blurted out,

"Of course he blames me. I _designed_ the thing. I let SHIELD take it and use it on him, and then I brought Dr. Strange along with us and tricked Loki into thinking he wasn't a threat to him, and… _of course_ he blames me."

"You're sure it's _him_ doing the blaming?"

"He threw a _knife_ at me, Steve. I think he made himself pretty clear about his feelings on the matter."

Steve shrugged. "As I recall, he wasn't clear about very much at all right then, except that he was mixed-up and angry and very scared."

"Oh, gee, I wonder why he'd feel like that?"

Steve sighed. "All I mean is, when he's recovered, when he's actually himself again, his perspective might change. By all means, be sorry he was in such a state. There'd be something wrong with you if you _didn't_ feel bad for him. But the fact he panicked and lashed out at you doesn't mean he was right."

Tony waited for Steve to say it-- that Loki had a bit of a history, of panicking and lashing out and then being sorry about it later anyway-- but he didn't, which was just as well. Whatever Loki had done before, why-ever he had done it, had nothing at all to do with this.

Instead, what Steve said was,

"I don't know whether Loki actually blames you, or whether he will when he can think straight again, but _you_ are another matter. Tony, what exactly were you trying to do, when you designed that device?"

Tony glared at Steve, willing him to turn into something small and fluffy. Steve just sat there, waiting. Tony, as he knew from the beginning he would, broke first:

"I was _trying_ … I was trying to improve on the helicarrier restraints."

"They seem to work fine. What needed improvement?"

Tony glared at Steve out of bloodshot eyes. "I know what you're doing."

"Just answer the question, Iron Man. What's wrong with the restraints they've got already?"

Tony sighed. "They're attached to a chair, for one thing. You've got to strap the prisoner down so he can't move. Can't hardly even wiggle, if you use all of them. It's… demeaning, and it's frightening, and there's no reason to treat someone like that unless you think there's a serious risk of his going Hannibal Lecter on you."

Steve didn't ask who Hannibal Lecter was-- he had developed enough tech-savviness to be able to look the reference up for himself later, if he was interested. Quite calmly, he said,

"Okay. So you thought it was cruel to the prisoners, to tie them up like that. What else?"

Tony picked up a quarter of the sandwich. Roast beef. He bit into it, chewed and swallowed, and then answered:

"The way they drain the magic carrier's strength-- that's how they contain the magic, they make the prisoner too weak to call on it, more than actually controlling the magic itself. So even when you take them off, the... the guy... is too weak to stand up, or leave, or… or defend himself, for quite a while."

"And that's not right?" Steve asked, as if Steve would have any doubts.

"Of course it's not right. If you've just brought someone in for questioning-- or hell, even if he's been found guilty of something… you can't treat people, or whatever, like that. It's like locking someone in an iron maiden. We're not the Spanish Inquisition, and we're not supposed to behave like that."

"Okay," Steve said. "So you were trying to come up with a design that didn't have those flaws: made sure the prisoner was able to move around, as long as it was safe; didn't make them so vulnerable-- didn't resort to the kind of intimidation the existing restraints did."

"Yeah," Tony muttered. That was it, in a nutshell: the existing helicarrier restraints, like so much of the technology SHIELD used, worked at least partly by emphasizing just how helpless the prisoner was. You could argue that most of the people SHIELD arrested were asking to be treated that way, but you could also argue that there was a distinct minority who were justly released, and who went away with a very bad feeling about SHIELD. Tony himself had been in a situation, once upon a time in a cave, in which someone had tried to intimidate him, and the result had been the opposite of what his captors expected. He'd probably had that in the back of his mind, when he tried to create a restraint device that wouldn't act as a provocation in and of itself. However:

"It didn't work," Tony reminded Steve.

"No, but you couldn't know that until you tested it. Which you didn't get a chance to do. The point here, Tony, is that you weren't designing a torture device. You were trying to create something that was more humane than the device SHIELD was already using."

"Yes. My intentions were good. And we both know what the road to hell is paved with," Tony snapped, and ate the rest of his sandwich triangle. Swallowing, he said, "It turns out you probably can't block someone's magic without really hurting him. Or her."

"Okay, so now you know that," Steve said, still infuriatingly calm.

Or… okay, maybe not infuriatingly. Whatever else Tony was right now, he was definitely not infuriated.

"Yeah," Tony argued anyway, "but I found it out the hard way, and somebody else had to suffer for my mistake. Just like I found out the hard way that it wasn't just our military, that was getting its hands on Stark Industries weapons. And I bet if I knew everything even _our_ military was doing with my weapons, I probably wouldn't feel good about that, either." Tony rubbed his aching eyes. "I keep _doing_ this: I keep trying to do the right thing, and trusting the wrong person to help me. Obadiah Stane, SHIELD, _myself_. I _try_ , and whatever I do, someone else keeps getting hurt. I stop manufacturing weapons, and I try to do good as Iron Man-- and what have I done as Iron Man, for SHIELD, that will turn out to have been the wrong thing, that hurt someone who didn't really deserve it?"

"Like Loki," Steve prompted. Tony shook his head.

"It's not just Loki. I even kind of feel bad that I feel so bad about him, because I know I only went looking for him because I like him, and I like his brother. If it hadn't been for that, if I hadn't known them personally, I might have just shrugged it off, just gone through legal channels, and... and _Harry Potter_ , or someone, might still be locked up in that cell." Tony scrubbed a hand back through his scruffy hair. "I can't... I can't just do the right thing for people I like, just because I feel like it."

"No," Steve agreed. "You can't." He stood, looking down at Tony for a moment. Then he patted him on the shoulder. "Eat your sandwich." He smiled. "And for the love of God, Tony, take a shower."

~oOo~

Loki was not able to begin thinking about the problem of Jotunheim right away: first, as promised, the queen paid a visit to the little group of adventurers. It was not perhaps a terribly coherent visit, Mother showing a frankly heartwarming tendency to burst into tears, but there were times when even Loki had to admit that coherence was vastly overrated.

It was not, he hastened to remind himself, that Loki took any pleasure at all in seeing his mother unhappy. It was just that she was so clearly the farthest thing possible from unhappy, and that was what was causing the tears. They were not, perhaps, all being shed by the queen, either. Or Annie, although she too was responsible for a considerable proportion of them.

The queen was unable to stay very long, since to do so would have drawn unnecessary attention to the inmates of the envoys' quarters. During Loki's previous, unintentional visit to Asgard, it had been made clear to the court that Odin had no desire to see harm come to his banished son, but Loki knew the palace and its inhabitants well enough to suspect it would be unwise to put too much faith in their good will. Odin had claimed one of the reasons he had maintained secrecy about Loki's antecedents in the first place was because he feared a "tragic accident" might result, if the court found out there was a Frost Giant whelp in the palace.

On sober reflection, Loki had to admit his father had a point. And there was reason enough to believe a similarly "tragic" "accident" might still be in the cards, if it ever became known the despised former prince was back, and powerless to boot. Even Thor, whose nature was far too trusting, seemed to have a sense of the reality of the situation, for which Loki was grateful.

Or rather, Loki was grateful until he realized how Thor intended to deal with the problem of ensuring his powerless brother's safety, and that of their friends, after Thor himself returned to assist the Avengers on Midgard.

"Sif!" Annie exclaimed, as the warrior maiden entered the hall.

"Hello, Annie. It's so good to see you again," Sif replied, embracing Annie, and then George and Mitchell in quick succession, before turning her attention to Loki. "You do have a talent for getting yourself into situations, my friend," she greeted him, throwing an arm about his shoulders. Once, the last two words would have been spoken with a twist in her voice. Now any twist was entirely absent.

"It really is remarkable," Loki replied, smiling at her in genuine pleasure, before it crossed his mind that she might not have come alone.

And she had not.

"Well, well, Loki! It has been… far too long," Fandral exclaimed, in a tone that suggested what he really meant was, it had not been anything like long enough. Loki stepped away from Sif and smiled back, or at any rate made an unthreatening display of teeth. Fandral walked into the living quarters, closely followed by an anxious-looking Volstagg and a silent Hogun. Fandral glanced around. "I don't believe we have ever been properly introduced to your friends."

Sif looked from one Warrior to the next, brows knit in a frown of concern. It was not that she was more intelligent than Thor, not exactly. She was simply more of a realist: Thor had always, for example, believed the best of his brother, even when any idiot could have told him jealousy and loneliness were wearing away any chains of decency or even sanity that restrained Loki's hand.

Thor had also believed the best of his friends, when any idiot could have told him they suffered his brother's company only as long as Thor was there to see. Loki glanced around the room and realized Annie, George, and Mitchell were looking at the Warriors Three with apprehension as well. Loki had not told his housemates very much of his past relations with the friends of his brother, but it was quite clear they were aware of the atmosphere in the room.

Much had changed in Loki's mind, concerning his perceptions of his past life in Asgard. He had come to realize that nearly all of the pain he had grown up with, so far as his relationship with his parents was concerned, had been self-inflicted. It was not that they did not love him. They did, and they always had. He understood that now, inside his head at least, and gestures like his father's embrace, and his mother's tears, were beginning to make him really believe it in his heart. It was not lack of love that was the problem, it was Loki's inability to recognize the love, except under circumstances in which it practically seized him by the shoulders and declared itself to his face.

Loki's perceptions were not always to be trusted, and he knew that now. And he might have questioned whether the powerful feelings of isolation and rejection he remembered, from his years of tagging along after Thor and Thor's friends, might have also been constructed within his own mind, had it not been for the look on Sif's face right now, and the distinct uneasiness of his own friends, and even his brother, as the Warriors Three looked around.

Sif had once been chief among Loki's tormenters, and in honesty he had at times given nearly as good to her as he got. The reason for their mutual hostility was simple: as chief among Thor's friends, Sif had represented the most serious threat to Loki's craving to be Thor's closest companion. And, as Thor's brother, Loki had seemed to represent exactly the same sort of threat to Sif.

Sif had been victorious in the battle for supremacy, or rather in the battle to be at the right hand of supremacy. Indeed, Loki had lost out altogether, had always been more or less an afterthought except on the rare occasions when diplomacy or sorcery was the only way out of trouble. Loki, after a few sincere early efforts to be friends had been rebuffed, had ended in hating his brother's friends, Sif most of all. The feeling was warmly reciprocated on her part.

Things had changed, however, after the first visit Thor paid to Loki at his new home in Bristol. Thor had come, he had explained, to have it out with his brother, to find out once and for all what was behind the lies and the violence and the insanity. Sif had come, Loki supposed, in case Thor needed either her arm or her shoulder as support.

The confrontation could easily have ended in disaster, except that Loki, no longer entirely alone, had allowed some of the protective edifice he had constructed around himself to come down as a consequence. The visit had ended with all three of them actually _seeing_ one another, for the first time in more years than Loki wished to think about. And Sif, it turned out, was much like Thor: both more intelligent and more sensitive than Loki had believed for all that time.

With a generosity that still astonished him to think about, Thor had forgiven Loki his transgressions. Sif had given every sign of doing so as well, in their brief encounters since, to the point that Loki now allowed himself to tentatively consider the possibility that she might actually, in truth, become his friend. She had, certainly, extended reassurance and hospitality to his own friends, on the occasion when they had all found themselves in Asgard. Loki no longer dreaded what Sif might think to do to him, should she find herself in a position of power over him.

He still harboured doubts about the Warriors Three, and Sif's air of unease made him quite sure these doubts, at least, were founded in reality. What had possessed Thor to involve them?

The answer presented itself immediately: in the first place, of course, Thor continued to assume those he trusted were entirely trustworthy. It was more than hypocritical for Loki to complain about that. And in the second place, who else was he to ask for assistance? Thor's closest companions were the mightiest of Asgard's mighty warriors, and if they despised Loki no less than the rest of the court, they certainly honoured Thor far more.

It was not going to be pleasant, spending his time in exile with the friends of his brother. But surely, regard for Thor's feelings, as well as the sharp eye of Sif, would prevent the occurrence of any "tragic accidents."

Loki schooled the muscles in his face to relax, the skin around his eyes to crinkle, until only someone who knew him very well indeed would have realized his smile was not genuine. Fortunately, the Warriors Three were not members of that small assemblage.

"Welcome, Fandral. Volstagg, Hogun," he nodded to the other Warriors. "May I present my housemates?"


	10. Chapter 10

There were disadvantages to being a strikingly attractive female assassin with red hair and black leather clothing. Chief among these was, it was hard to blend into the background when you looked like the Black Widow.

Which, of course, meant that if you traded the red hair for a temporary dull-brown dye job and a headscarf, the black leather for a blue cotton overall, and your regular makeup for a scrubbed face with, perhaps, the barest hint of eyeshadow rubbed in just where it would suggest dark circles below the eyes…

Well, there you were: instant invisibility. You could just push your cleaning cart down the hall of the expensive serviced apartment building where Dr. Strange lived when he was in New York, and blend right in with the rest of the domestic staff.

And so Natasha did: mingled with the cleaning staff, let herself into Strange's apartment with the passkey, and, in the course of cleaning the place, had a good look around.

It was apparent that Strange hadn't come back here after he left the lodge in Scotland. Natasha didn't think that necessarily meant anything had happened to him, since as far as she knew the apartment was only his _pied a terre_ in the city, not his real home. But he'd been living here for some time before Tony took him to Malibu-- a few months, according to what Tony told her. And yet, the apartment had the feeling of a place that had been deserted for a rather long time.

There was no food in the fridge except for some dried-out cheese and a few shrivelled mushrooms. The spice rack was thick with dust, as were the knives in the knife block. Natasha went through the kitchen with cleaning products, and also with the tiny spy camera Tony had provided her, using her cover as a diligent cleaner to take a close look at everything.

What bothered her about the kitchen was, she kept finding gadgets and spices and well-worn recipe books with handwritten notations and exotic cooking oils and high-quality pans and knives-- evidence that Strange was probably a guy who liked to cook, to experiment in the kitchen. And yet, there wasn't a scrap of anything edible to be found. It wasn't that perishables had gone bad while he was away, it was that what was there was practically mummified, and there wasn't even much of that. It was as if Strange just wasn't eating, at least not at home.

Natasha opened the dishwasher and nearly recoiled. The dishes in the machine hadn't been run through a wash cycle, and the scraps and remains of sauce on them were very nearly compost. The inside of the machine smelled so rank that Natasha estimated the contents had been festering for weeks, if not months. She quickly closed the door and latched it, then reconsidered and looked for the dish detergent. The powder was old enough to have absorbed humidity and crystallized, but she was able to salvage enough to run a wash cycle. Someone would thank her for that, sooner or later.

A check of the cupboards revealed, once again, heavy dust on everything. Nobody had touched the dishes in the cupboard for much longer than a week.

Again, it was possible Strange had been eating out exclusively, but it was still weird and gross that he had left those dirty dishes in the machine for so long without washing. And the kitchen setup looked like it belonged to the sort of guy who cooked for himself, not someone who ate out all the time.

As she went through the apartment, Natasha continued to receive the impression the place was long-abandoned, even though Strange had been living here up until less than a week ago. No work notes, no laundry, clean or otherwise, soap in the bathroom soapdish completely dried out and cracked, towel over the shower rod sour and rough as though it had air-dried very slowly after too many uses, crumpled washcloth in the bathtub gone moldy in the folds.

Continuing into the den/office, Natasha did a discreet sweep for spy devices, found none, and turned on Strange's laptop, entering the administrator account information Tony had given her to bypass Strange's own login. None of the documents in his hard drive or the flash drive sitting next to the laptop had been updated in at least two months.

She opened a browser and checked the "Show All History" option that let her see what Strange had been looking at in the past weeks and months. His browser history was also empty for the past two months. It wasn't that he had been clearing it, it was that there was no activity at all. Three months ago, Strange had been accessing everything from the Internet Movie Database to the National Library of Medicine on his computer, perfectly normal-looking, even innocent stuff. There were some garbled URLs that probably represented encrypted sites, but for the moment Natasha wasn't interested in those: in Dr. Strange's line of work, it was to be expected he would access a certain number of encrypted sites. What interested Natasha right now was the fact he had so abruptly stopped.

The bedroom was really the only room that looked lived-in, for a given value of the term: the bed was being slept in, though Natasha did not want to guess at how long it had been since he had changed the sheets. The relative lack of dust on the surfaces of the furniture indicated that the air was being disturbed, at any rate, on a fairly regular basis. Aside from that there were no signs of occupancy: no books on the bedside table, a plastic bottle of water gone all strange-shaped the way they did when the seal was broken and then they sat for too long and the air inside escaped.

Tony was quite sure Strange had been living in the apartment up until Tony kidnapped him, and there was CCTV footage of him coming and going from both the building lobby and the back entrance to confirm this, at least. The comings and goings corresponded to Strange going to work and coming home. And maybe he really did eat breakfast after he left the building, and dinner before he came back, but he never emerged on the weekends. So, what? He fasted through Saturday and Sunday? Ordered in pizza?

So: Strange wasn't eating at home, wasn't doing research, wasn't bathing. Hadn't been for a while, by the looks of it. And yet, all the indications-- from the kitchen setup, to the amount of old work on the laptop, to the fact Strange did not wander around looking disheveled and homeless-- were that he had previously been in the habit of doing all these things. And then he had suddenly stopped. While continuing to live in the apartment, and continuing to present his normal face to the outside world.

Weird.

When she looked in the maintenance logs later, Natasha also learned the reason for the disarray in Strange's apartment: two months ago, at around the same time he apparently stopped living his life in his New York apartment, he had also had all domestic services discontinued. He lived, at least part of the time, in a serviced apartment, but chose not to avail himself of the services included in his rent? After several years of using them whether he was actually in residence or not, and indeed (according to the super-secret notes-on-the-tenant file the maids kept for their own reference) having had a history as a purveyor of generous tips, and even Christmas gifts, to the staff who looked after his flat?

It didn't make sense. Which led to the question: what did it mean?

~oOo~

It was practically like old times, Loki reflected wearily, as the group set up camp and waited for Thor and Sif to return from their visit to Njord, King of Vanaheim.

It was a matter of etiquette, the crown prince paying a visit to the Vanir king, to thank him personally for agreeing to offer sanctuary to Loki and his companions. There was no need for the actual refugees to speak to King Njord, certainly not the banished prince upon whom Njord had not laid eyes since Loki was an adolescent or before. Indeed, considering the circumstances, it was tactful to keep Loki as far from the Vanir king as possible. Thor, with his right hand Sif, was the appropriate envoy to convey Odin's thanks.

Loki understood the necessity, was not offended by it. Likewise, the Aesir garb procured for him and his friends was appropriate to commoners or servants, and that did not bother him, either, not really: it would attract less potentially-unfriendly attention, and besides, Loki was no longer accustomed to thinking of himself as a prince (or former prince) of anywhere.

It was less of a wrench than one might imagine, considering how miserably unhappy he had been as a member of royalty, and how much more contented he was as a Midgardian commoner with equally common friends. Under most circumstances he would have given very little thought to what he was wearing, except to notice it felt strange now that he was used to Midgardian clothing.

"Most circumstances," of course, would not have included being under the watchful eyes of Fandral, Volstagg, and Hogun, knowing they were assessing the situation, calculating the exact distance of his fall in rank and status. Thor had to pay his respects to Njord, and it made sense for him to bring Sif along as his lieutenant, but Loki found himself wishing Fandral had gone instead, leaving at least one Asgardian behind who could bear the thought of Loki free and healthy.

Not that anyone made threats. With Thor coming back soon, Thor who clearly, though inexplicably, cared what became of his wayward brother, the Warriors Three knew better than to even suggest the possibility of physical violence.

Instead-- and this was what made Loki feel so very weary, far beyond the bodily exhaustion from which he was not yet recovered-- instead, they reverted to the old, old game of exclusion, of talking around Loki, of looking past him, of pretending he was simply not there.

This would have been bad enough, although obviously Loki would have ignored it, would not have spoken of it to his brother, would not have added to his own problems by turning into a whiner or a tell-tale at this late date.

No, what made it much worse was the recognition that, in addition to excluding Loki, the Warriors, or at any rate Fandral, were doing their utmost to woo his friends. And Fandral could be very charming, asking them questions and addressing remarks to them, expressing interest in their impressions of the realm, and generally acting as though they were the most fascinating beings he had the good fortune to encounter for many years.

Volstagg supported Fandral's efforts, although Loki did allow for the possibility that Volstagg was simply being genuinely welcoming-- Loki had always hated Volstagg rather less than the others, and more on general principles than because the big man was purposely unkind to him, at least when left to his own devices. Hogun ignored the entire situation, giving the impression the Midgardians were as far beneath his notice as Loki, or indeed anyone but Thor, Sif, and the other Warriors.

Loki also ignored what was happening, on the grounds it would be undignified to protest or to try to insert himself into the conversation. As little as he cared what Fandral thought of him, he still disliked the thought of receiving a direct rebuff from the buffoon.

Instead, he casually announced he was going to collect firewood, directing his words toward his friends, who frankly looked less captivated than trapped. Annie, not a woman to be impressed with blatant charm offensives by obvious wolves like Fandral, promptly announced her intention of coming with him.

"Surely you do not intend to let such a lovely creature spoil her hands with manual labour?" Fandral drawled at Loki, as if it was his decision what Annie chose to do.

Loki ignored the comment. Annie, for her part, raised her eyebrows and addressed Fandral directly for the first time:

"Say that to Sif, why don't you?" She turned to Loki, who suddenly found himself giggling, and gestured to him to lead the way into the woods.

A minute or two later, they were joined by George and Mitchell.

"That guy," announced Mitchell, "is not subtle."

"I think he thought he was being very clever," said George. Loki looked affectionately at George-- George who, if he had half his brain sucked out by the drill-like tongue of a Dire Wraith from the Dark Nebula, would still be at least twice as intelligent as Fandral. George went on, "It's unnerving, having someone like that talk to me as if he doesn't plan to dunk my head into the nearest toilet, and flush. I don't know quite how to react."

It had not occurred to Loki before that George-- bright, likable, but bespectacled, pedantic, and slightly awkward George-- probably had a great deal of experience of his own in dealing with people like Fandral, and all of it from the same perspective as Loki. The fact he had not, as yet, taken advantage of his werewolf condition to rend such an individual limb from limb was all the confirmation Loki needed that George was a better person than he was.

"Is he always like that toward you?" Annie asked. Loki shrugged, and Annie looked stern at the evasion.

"More or less," Loki admitted.

"And yet you've never blown him up or run him over with an enchanted rhinoceros," George marveled.

"Apparently not," Loki said.

"You're more patient than I would have been," Mitchell mused.

"Me, too," George agreed. "What?"

"Nothing," Loki giggled, then stopped abruptly, suddenly tense, at the sound of someone approaching them through the underbrush. It was ridiculous, for him to feel so threatened in the company of three other people, but--

"Hey there," said Agent Coulson, brushing twigs from his tunic, as he emerged from the brush. Loki felt himself relax. Coulson went on, "Loki, I tried to find out what those three know about that Jotun situation your father and Heimdall mentioned, but… Your brother and Sif are the brains of this operation, aren't they?"

"I believe that to be the case," Loki agreed, reflecting that at least he now knew that to be a less dismal thought than he had believed for many years.

Coulson nodded. "You planning to do something about that?" he asked bluntly. Loki looked at the agent, startled. It had not occurred to him that Coulson would be paying any particular regard to his intentions, now that Loki was not in a jurisdiction for which Coulson was responsible.

"I was wondering that myself," Annie said quietly. "Loki, that sounds like it might be a really dangerous idea."

"That does not…" Loki stopped himself, remembering who he was talking to. Rather than argue that danger to him would not matter, which he knew his housemates would take about as well as he would a similar declaration from one of them, he explained, "It is my fault, that relations are so bad." Catching Annie's eye, he amended, "Very well, _partly_ my fault. But… let us be honest. In _great_ part. The attack led by Thor was reckless and provoking, but I made a cold-blooded effort to kill everyone on the realm. What I did was far worse, and it must have made it appear to the Jotun that Asgard could never be trusted again. That has to be what lies behind this new threat."

"Okay, but here's what I don't understand," George spoke up, polishing his spectacles with the hem of his rough tunic. "When Thor came to see us in Bristol, remember how he told us that story about your mother? I mean, your birth mother?"

Loki nodded stiffly. He remembered it very well, the story Thor had told, of the Jotun queen who had been murdered for trying to thwart Laufey's plan to leave her baby-- to leave _Loki_ \-- to die by exposure and starvation. He thought about her sometimes, at night when he could not sleep. He had no sense of her as a mother, was unable to picture her without Frigga's face intervening in his mind, but the knowledge that she had attempted such a sacrifice was a reminder to him that much of what he had always thought he knew about the Jotun was false, had to be false. He had never thought of them as beings capable of affection or tenderness, capable of much thought or emotion at all, but one does not die to defend another without thinking and feeling. The very thought of her filled him with intense shame.

Annie slipped her arm through his in a comforting gesture-- Loki was not as practiced at deceit as he used to be, and besides, he had never made much effort to trick Annie-- and George looked apologetic as he went on:

"All I mean is, he told us he heard that story from one of the Jotun counselors who came to Asgard with the new king. Remember?" Loki nodded. George said, "And they came on a peace mission, to settle things down between your country and theirs."

Loki frowned at George for a moment, nearly disavowed Asgard as "his"-- and then saw what his friend was driving at:

"And, that being the case, why would they then reverse themselves so soon and behave aggressively, which Heimdall's words certainly implied they are doing?"

"Exactly," George said. "Even based on the little I know about how things are on Jotunheim, it just seems like a bad idea for them."

"It certainly is," Loki replied slowly, thinking about it. Even apart from whatever destruction Loki had wrought, the Jotun were already, and had been for many years, badly weakened without the Casket of Eternal Winters, which reposed in the weapons vault of Asgard and had done so throughout Loki's lifetime. As long as the aggressive Laufey was king, it had seemed to Odin a very dangerous idea to return this source of power to the Jotun.

But a new ruler was a new chance, and this one had begun his reign with conciliation. It was, of course, possible his people saw that as weakness, and he felt compelled to offer aggression toward Asgard. But it seemed to Loki that, even if the Jotun king's intentions were belligerent, sheer common sense would argue in favour of dissembling, at least until he persuaded Odin to hand over the casket.

Perhaps the new king was already impatient, certain that would never happen, but his counselors were older Jotun, old enough to remember Laufey's predecessor, old enough to advise the long game. It was in the interests of Jotunheim to be patient.

No, it did not make sense, unless something drastic had happened, that relations should have soured again so quickly. And if something drastic had happened, Thor would know about it. Odin might not have been troubling him with the details of affairs of state, but a cataclysm was something else entirely. Odin would have told Thor about anything major.

Coulson was looking very thoughtful. "If I were you," he said, "I'd ask Sif what she knows about all this."

Loki nodded. "That is an excellent suggestion."

~oOo~

Clint didn't need to go through as much trouble as Natasha in terms of a disguise: all he did was put on his regular civilian clothes, add a toolbelt, and openly enter Nick Fury's place as a handyman. Fury lived in a storey-and-a-half Craftsman-style house in a quiet neighbourhood-- as un-Fury-like a place as could be imagined. Clint permitted himself a moment to try and imagine Fury, in his black clothing and long leather coat, sitting on the front porch sipping lemonade and exchanging genial remarks with the dog-walkers who passed by his house.

It was much easier to imagine him drawing his sidearm as he ordered kids off his lawn.

The official story was that Fury, after being replaced as director of SHIELD, had decided to draw his pension and indulge his passion for sport fishing. Clint hadn't had a chance to compare notes with Coulson, but he had no recollection whatsoever of Fury ever speaking about fishing, passionately or otherwise. As far as Clint knew, Fury was passionate about arresting bad guys. Period.

Tony Stark had taken a look at Fury's bank records, and discovered funds were being transferred into his chequing account every month, an amount that could correspond to a pension from a government agency. Funds were also automatically debited, to pay for mortgage and utilities.

And that was all. Fury had a savings account that had not been touched in months, and there didn't seem to be any money coming out of the chequing account that wasn't going to these automatic payments.

The question wasn't: How was Fury supposed to be paying for this fishing trip? The question was: How was Fury supposed to be paying for groceries?

Clint went diligently through the house, "checking the wiring" in every room, and incidentally also looking for listening devices or spy cameras. If something had happened to Fury, it seemed likely he had been spied on first. Clint, for one, wouldn't mess around with Fury without planning ahead.

Clint's patience was rewarded: he found tiny microphones in the kitchen, the study, and the bedroom. Suppressing a sigh of relief that he found nothing in the bathroom, he carefully examined them without touching anything.

Perfectly ordinary little spy devices, all right. The most interesting thing about them, as far as Clint could see under magnification, was the logo on the side of each: a stylized fist, holding a hammer that looked a lot like Thor's Mjolnir.

Interesting.

~oOo~

With a return to his old cunning, Loki did not tackle Thor or Sif about the Jotun situation when they returned from the palace. He merely asked how the visit had gone.

"Very well," Thor replied. "Njord was very kind about your visit and said he wished he could see you before your stay ended. At the moment it is impossible-- he seemed preoccupied." Realizing he had said too much, Thor added hastily, "He and his queen, Skadi, are making preparations for their usual sojourn in her home country. You know how they are."

Loki nodded-- the Vanir king and his giantess queen had never been able to agree on a single dwelling place, and so they travelled between his land and hers. Loki could not imagine Odin allowing himself to be put to such trouble by his wife, but then again he could not imagine Frigga making such a demand. Perhaps if she did, Odin would react in the same manner as Njord.

"And they had affairs of state to attend to, before their departure," Sif remarked, in a quiet voice that Loki thought bore a certain significance. He glanced at her when Thor's eyes were elsewhere, and she nodded almost imperceptibly, then rolled her eyes toward Thor. Loki took this as a warning not to follow up with any questions until after Thor's return to Midgard the next day. Conscious that if Thor was really worried about Loki's intentions, he would delay his departure and then feel guilty for abandoning his Avenger friends in the fight against SHIELD, Loki made a tiny gesture of his own in agreement.

It occurred to him that this was the first time in at least seven hundred years that he and Sif had conspired together over anything. Unless this was a trick, and he had no reason to believe it was, it was possible she now considered him a potential friend as well. The idea was a bright spark within him.

Loki did not have a reputation as a being who ever left well enough alone, but in fact he was now strongly inclined that way in the matter of his brother's friends. There was no telling how long his exile here would last-- in his mind, it was tied to the return of his magic, and with it his ability to defend himself, and to assist the Avengers in their fight against SHIELD. It seemed to him pointless to antagonize the Warriors Three any further than his very existence did already.

Safe at home on Midgard, he had occasionally fantasized about repairing relations with Thor's friends, but now they were here together, he realized their attitude toward him had undergone no softening since his departure. And completely without defensive magic as he was, Loki did not consider the time opportune to for a discussion of their relationship.

With that in mind, he kept quiet, pretended there was no uneasiness between them as the group ate their evening meal and then settled around a roaring campfire. Perhaps someone would think of a story to amuse everyone, to chase away the discomfort.

At his right, Thor seemed unusually fidgety. Loki felt sorry for his brother, who had gone so many centuries without ever seeming to have noticed the tension and hostility between his brother and his friends. It crossed Loki's mind to wonder what Thor's reaction might have been, if Loki had brought this to his brother's attention sooner. Loki had never done so because he assumed he knew what that reaction would be, but now he wondered a little.

Annie, on Loki's left, fended off a few heavy-handed pleasantries from Fandral, and responded politely to what appeared to be genuinely friendly overtures from Volstagg-- and then she set the cat among the pigeons in no uncertain terms by asking,

"So you've all been friends since you were children? Loki and Thor and all of you?'

If she had assumed a tone of artificial innocence, she might have gotten a different answer, a sham declaration of goodwill from one of the Warriors, or a placating reply from Thor, or Loki himself. Instead, Annie's tone reminded Loki a little of Eir the healer, when she used to demand to know how Loki had come to hurt himself this time. He had always lied to his parents about his various injuries, but for some reason-- possibly the knowledge that Eir would do nothing with the information except know it-- Loki had tended to tell her the truth.

Even at that, it was something of a surprise to hear Thor reply, with unsparing honesty, to Annie's question:

"Sif and the Warriors and I have been friends and companions since childhood, yes."

"And Loki," Volstagg murmured uneasily.

"Loki was with us, yes, but I hardly think it accurate to say we treated him as a friend," Sif spoke up, her tone dry.

"And why was that?" Annie asked, her voice still completely devoid of the bright innocence with which she normally spoke. Loki had worked at a school for quite long enough to be familiar with this particular note of gentle command.

Thor grimaced. "Because… what is that word you use, when you speak of vampires? Not Mitchell, but the others."

Mitchell, George and Loki stared at him. Mitchell tried first: "Vicious?"

"No."

"Insatiable?" George offered, and Thor shook his head.

"No, it describes their personalities," he said.

"Arseholes," Annie suggested abruptly, and Thor nodded.

"Yes, that is the word. We were arseholes. All of us, but especially me."

"I won’t disagree with you," Annie said, in that calm teacher's voice, "but I would like to know why."

After an uncomfortable silence, Thor finally said, "I suppose because he was younger, just enough to make a difference to children, though it matters little enough now."

"Loki felt the same way, did he?" Annie asked, eyebrows rising. "Didn't want to play with you because you were older?" Loki glanced at her, hoping she would heed his wordless plea to drop it, to leave it alone. Nothing useful would come of this, it was safer to walk about as though on eggshells for a few days and then leave as soon as they could. This was likely to be his last encounter with the Warriors Three, and there seemed little point in provoking them this one last time.

Annie met his eyes with an expression of determination, and he knew there was no changing her course. Surrendering with the best grace he could muster, Loki told the truth before the Warriors for the first time in many years:

"No. Actually, when Thor began to include them in our games, I thought… I just expected we would all be friends. Thor and I had been inseparable from the time-- I was going to say _from the time I was born_ , but I suppose that isn't true, is it? From the time the Allfather brought me to the palace. From the earliest time I could remember. I… I assumed that would not change."

"But it did?" Annie prompted. Loki glared at her and nodded, his voice suddenly as untrustworthy as he had always been seen to be.

"You could have made other friends," Fandral argued, perfectly composed, as if this was a case he had made before, in his own mind, often enough that he was convinced of it.

"With whom?" Thor retorted, before Loki had to. "If you recall, one of the things that drew us together in the first place was the simple fact there were no other children near our age at court, aside from a few girls who preferred to play at being mothers with their dolls-- and we never told Sif she should find her place among them. Aside from that, there were some older boys who would not have wanted us, and babies. How was Loki supposed to 'make other friends'?"

"There's a very good book back home, about a man named Dr. Frankenstein-- " George murmured, and Annie frankly kicked him. Loki, suddenly possessed by who-knew-what ridiculous urge to speak plainly, suddenly said,

"And why should _I_ have been treated as the interloper? _I_ was there first. Thor had never seemed discontented with my company before, and suddenly I was a tagalong and a nuisance? How did _that_ happen?" For a horrible moment he thought his voice would break on the last words, and he fell silent, biting his lip hard. The anger flaring in his own voice had startled him.

"You didn't like us, either," Hogun spoke up, belligerently.

Loki shook his head. "That is not true. At least it wasn't at first. I wanted… I wanted to be friends with you. It was only after-- " He broke off again. Thor laid a hand on his back, rubbed comfortingly, seemed not to notice the surprise on the faces of Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg when Loki suffered him to do it, Loki who they all remembered recoiling from contact with them. Perhaps they did not remember that he had only begun to recoil when they began to treat "friendly greetings" as an opportunity for blows hard enough to leave bruises on his shoulders.

"You may as well say it," Thor suggested.

"Say what?" Loki temporized.

Thor shrugged. "Whatever it is you have been choking on for all these years. _Better out than in_ , as Eir used to say when we were sick."

Loki took a deep breath. "Very well. I wanted to be friends with you all, and I continued to want it. For years. Nearly up until the moment you travelled to Midgard to bring Thor back, before I could prove myself. But I also… I hated you, for taking my place. I hated Thor, for replacing me with you. And I hated myself most of all, for being so _easy_ to replace." Thor winced. Loki did not look at him, but the hand remained, warm and heavy, on his back. "You would think, wouldn't you, that a person of any worth at all would not be so easily discarded? I knew that to be true, so I knew there had to be something really wrong with me. And I thought, I thought… I hoped… that you would change your minds and decide to like me after all, and then it would mean that I… that I deserved to be…"

There seemed very little to add to that, and as the threat of humiliating himself seemed to increase with every moment, Loki fell silent.

"You had a very strange way of showing you wanted to be friends," Fandral said after a moment. "What you did to Sif's hair-- "

"For the love of everything, Fandral, you are not still holding a grudge over that?" Sif burst out. "Let it alone. It was my hair, and I have forgiven him."

"And that is your right, of course," Fandral argued. "But as your friend, I remember how hard it was for you in the first place, to be a girl and a warrior, and then when you had to walk around with your hair shorn like a criminal's and as black as a carrion crow-- " Loki flinched, and Fandral saw it. "You never thought of that, did you?" Fandral demanded, triumphant, and suddenly less of a buffoon.

"I did not," Loki said evenly, trying not to wonder why _carrion crow_ had struck him so forcibly. "It never occurred to me. I did believe, when I cast the spell, that it would be temporary. I assumed her hair would change back to its natural colour in a few days, and then when it did not I watched it as it grew again, expecting the gold to return." He caught Sif's eye. "I cannot say I was sorry when it did not, and I do not think I would have changed my mind about casting the spell if I had known in advance, but I truly did not realize it would be permanent. And I am sorry, now, that I did it."

Sif made a gesture of dismissal, not of Loki, but of the need for him to apologize. Fandral, however, was not yet finished:

"If you had done it to any of the rest of us-- you could have turned Thor's hair black. You could have turned mine bright _green_. That would have been genuinely amusing. But to target Sif, to make her way harder for her-- why would you do that?"

"I don't remember," Loki said honestly. Fandral uttered an oath, and both Hogun and Volstagg looked disbelieving. "No, truly, I do not remember. I remember doing it. I remember that I was very angry about something. I remember… what happened afterward-- " He had tried for many years not to remember the aftermath, but with far less success than he had in erasing from his own mind whatever childish malice had led to the incident in the first place. "But I truly, _truly_ do not remember why I actually did it." There was a sickness in the pit of his stomach that suggested he was lying to himself again, but Loki ignored it, pushed it away to lie with _carrion crow_ as a cause of sudden, inexplicable distress. "I did it, and I was… punished for it, but I do not remember why. If Sif forgives me, can we not let it alone?"

"You deserved more than ordinary punishment," Hogun now took Fandral's side.

"And I got more than ordinary punishment, if you remember," Loki flared. "I got a beating from Father, and then another from the lot of you later. Surely that is enough?"

"I always wondered what possessed you to do it, myself," Thor admitted, and he might as well have taken his hand away, withdrawn all support. Loki shook his head, wordlessly. Sif was looking at him very peculiarly as well. Thor patted him, which helped a little, but then went on doggedly, "The whole thing was strange. First, you decided not to come on that first trip to Vanaheim with us-- "

"No, I didn't," Loki protested. Everyone looked at him.

"All right," Thor said gently, "first, I retracted your invitation. But you seemed very unwilling to come with us-- "

"But I did," Loki insisted. The others now looked as though he had taken leave of his senses. Loki floundered on, "The time we came to explore the ruined temple. That was, that was long after I spoiled Sif's hair. You were all speaking to me again. That was our first trip to Vanaheim, and I was with you. I thought you might leave me behind so I went to Father, behind Thor's back, and asked particularly if I could go. I know it was underhanded of me, but I wanted so much-- "

"That was the second trip," Thor said, still gently, looking at Loki as if he was raving with fever. "Do you not remember? I invited you to come on the first trip."

"I always wondered why you bothered," Volstagg spoke up bluntly. "You knew he would hang around until we included him, anyway."

Thor sighed. "I had had… a conversation with our mother. She was worried, even then, about how Loki and I were getting along. She reminded me that I would have many friends throughout my life, but I would only ever have one brother, and when we were men I would be glad to be friends with him. It reminded me… I felt sorry, and guilty, for not being kinder, and so I invited him particularly. I thought… I thought you were pleased," he addressed Loki.

"I don't remember," Loki insisted, almost inaudibly.

"And then the day we were to depart, you looked as if you would rather do anything else, and I was angry, and… and hurt, so I told you there was no need to come if you preferred not to, I had only asked you anyway because Mother made me. I was ashamed of myself, afterward, for saying that, especially in front of everyone. And you went back into the palace by yourself, and we had our adventure, and the day after our return you played that spiteful trick on Sif. I would have understood if you had played it on me, but…"

Sif was beginning to look angry. "Loki, you must remember-- "

"I don't," Loki insisted. "Really, I don't."

"Well," she said, "as it happens, I do."

For some reason, her words filled him with dread. "Please, Sif. I really am sorry. I know I could be the most spiteful brat imaginable, but… If even I am too ashamed to remember, it must have been very bad. I am already ashamed of so many things. Mercy." The plea was half in jest, but Sif knew as well as anyone that Loki would not beg an enemy for mercy, which implied he considered her a friend.

Had considered her. Almost. Apparently, he had considered wrong.

Sif, her face set in hard lines, turned to Thor. "You remember the morning we left on our expedition." Thor nodded. "We had arranged to meet just inside the palace gates. Do you remember the order in which we arrived?"

Thor, puzzled, shrugged. "I walked up with Volstagg, and Hogun and Fandral were right behind us. I think you were already there when I arrived, as was-- " Thor fell suddenly, utterly silent.

Sif nodded. "Yes. I was already there, and so was Loki. I knew he would be early, knew he would take no chance of giving us an excuse to leave him behind, so I came along early as well, and he was already there, sitting on the steps a little removed from the guardhouse." She paused, took a deep breath, and said, "And I walked over and sat down beside him, and told him how tired we all were of his tagging along, that he was a fool if he thought he was wanted, that he should have more pride than to skulk after us like a carrion crow, and a great deal more along the same lines." Addressing Loki directly, she said, "I will never forget your face. You must have been crushed. We always knew you were jealous, both _of_ Thor's position, and _for_ his regard, but of course the Warriors and I were equally jealous of his attention, and of you, because we could not alter the fact you were brothers. But I did manage to alter your mood, that morning. That was one of the first times I saw that expression of yours, the one that looks as if all the doors are barred and the shutters closed."

Directing her attention to the others, she went on, "Thor and the Warriors arrived nearly together, just after I finished speaking. I suppose to Thor, Loki just looked sulky, so he told him that he need not come if he did not want to, and that their mother had forced the invitation. Naturally, anyone with a scrap of pride would have done exactly what Loki did, which was to pick up his belongings and go back into the palace without another word. The rest of us went and had a wonderful time. And no, I did not feel even a tiny bit guilty, because of course I told myself that someone had to tell Loki the truth, as if he did not already know he was not wanted. It was not _my_ fault he had been humiliated in front of all of us.

"When we came back, the adults were very indulgent and treated us as though we had had a genuine adventure. We were allowed to tell stories about it in the great hall, and Loki was there because, I suppose, it would have been too conspicuous for him not to be. And Volstagg, I'm sure you remember this, Volstagg, called out to ask if he was sorry now he had been so foolish as to stay home. Everyone laughed, all the adults, everyone. Loki just sat there looking at the ground, much as he is doing right now, and then Fandral called out, 'carrion crow.' I suppose Loki assumed that meant I had told Thor and the Warriors exactly why he had not joined us. I hadn't, I was too crafty for that: I knew Thor would not be happy to learn I had usurped his authority by rescinding his invitation even if it had been extended unwillingly. I had simply dared Fandral to call him that name before everyone. Do you remember that, Fandral?"

"Yes," Fandral said quietly, apparently unable to decide where to look. Sif nodded again.

"And the next morning when I woke, I put my hand to my head and realized my hair was all cut-- no, hacked-- off short, and when I looked in the mirror it was as black as... as a crow's. Loki had already begun to experiment with what we called his magic tricks, so I blamed him immediately, and indeed when we went to his room, my golden braid and the scissors he had used were lying on the chest of drawers, waiting to be found. He denied nothing, and I hit him, and after the healers had dealt with his split lip and broken milk teeth we went before the Allfather, where I pleaded my case.

"I did have one bad moment, Loki, when your mother gave you that disappointed look and asked what had possessed you, to play such a cruel trick on your friend. If she had thought to ask you privately, I wonder if you would have told her the truth. But of course, you would not tell such a humiliating story in front of so many witnesses, and besides, whatever else you were, you were no talebearer, so you said you just wanted to see if you could, or some such foolishness. I suppose the Allfather wanted to ensure you never did such a thing again, because you got quite a beating, did you not?"

"Yes," Loki said, tone remote. He shifted his shoulders as though they still hurt him.

"Yes," Sif agreed, and then went back to addressing Loki's friends and Agent Coulson: "But that was not the end of it, of course, because I was the injured party, and I had not paid him out yet. None of us spoke to Loki for... it must have been quite two weeks, and by the end he was lonely enough to hang around us again, hoping, I suppose, to be forgiven. So, finally, we decided to play huntsmen. I told Loki he could be the quarry. When we caught up to him, he had climbed a tree. Normally, we would have declared victory when we found him and the game would be over, but this time Volstagg, whose reach was longest, used his staff to knock Loki off the branch he was holding onto. I don't know if he broke his shoulder when he hit the ground, or if it happened when we kicked him, but I do remember I was the one who smashed his nose. I don't know how far we would have gone, if Loki had not finally broken down, crying and begging us to stop, but he did. We made him grovel for a while, and then Thor decided enough was enough and called us off."

"I remember that," Thor said quietly. "I didn't know what to do. I felt like I could not intervene, not without betraying my friends, but I was so afraid.... I have never in my life been so glad to hear anyone cry, because that meant we had won and he acknowledged it, so I could tell you to stop."

"I was glad of it, too," Volstagg murmured, looking genuinely rather sick at the memory.

Sif went on, "We made Loki walk home, bleeding and weeping and holding his arm, though we were considerate enough to slow our steps to allow him to nearly keep up, and Thor accompanied him to the healers to make sure he did not faint in the corridor."

"I remember that," Thor said quietly. "I told him not to whine, that it was his own fault we had had to do this to him. He was certainly intelligent enough to know better than to complain, or do anything that might cause us to teach him another such lesson." He glanced at Loki. "I'm sure you did indeed learn something from that incident, though probably not what we thought we were teaching."

Loki nodded, without looking up. "Yes. That was when I decided your friends really would kill me, if they thought they could get away with it. And when none of the adults questioned that ridiculous explanation, that I had gotten all those injuries falling out of a tree, I knew they _could_ get away with it. I also knew better than to tell anyone what had happened, not even Eir. So I began to work hard on protective spells, like the ones I used later on the door of my chambers to keep you from breaking in when I was elsewhere."

"What, you placed spells on your person?" Fandral asked, and even he looked foolish when he recognized his own note of surprise.

"It seemed the best solution. It was unbearable, to be alone all the time, so I would go with you when you let me, and count on magic for protection in case you turned on me." As Fandral continued to stare, Loki asked, "Did you never find yourself approaching my tent, with the idea of playing some mischief on me as I slept, and then find yourself distracted with the urge to do something else entirely?" Fandral flushed red, and Loki shrugged. "It drew less attention than the more spectacular sort of magic, but it did the job."

"And you continued to do this until-- when?" Thor asked, also sounding surprised.

Loki shrugged again. "I have no spells on me at the moment. It was not infallible, obviously, it did not protect me from being left behind on Svartelfheim when we were adolescents, but at least I could be fairly confident I would not be dragged from my bed and beaten half to death." He glanced at the others. "I knew I had brought it upon myself, I just preferred not to have the same experience again if I could help it."

"Why didn't you tell anyone?" George asked, genuinely horrified. Annie looked less horrified than either George or Mitchell. Loki realized it was because Annie was less surprised.

Loki shrugged again, helplessly. "Asgard is a warrior society. Everyone knew what I had done to Sif. Everyone knew what they had done to me. What good would it have done, to add to my unsavory reputation by becoming a bearer of tales to boot?"

"But your _parents?_ " Mitchell protested.

Thor spoke up. "Father was away at the time, in Nordheim. By the time he came back, Loki was out of the healing rooms and the marks were fading. It would have been difficult to make him understand how bad it was. Mother, however-- " He turned to Loki. "Apparently this is another story no one ever told you. Mother cornered me and informed me that it was not impossible, for my friends and their families to find themselves banished from court, if you ever came to harm like that in our company again. I tried to tell her you had brought it on yourself, but she was having none of it. I'd never been afraid of Mother, before or since, but I was afraid of her that day."

"She also had… a word… with me," Sif admitted. "The only phrase I remember was that my vanity was not worth her son's life, but I was left with a rather distinct impression that she felt my _life_ was not worth her son's, either. It took a long time, and I think I had saved Thor in battle at least twice, before I really felt at ease in her company again."

Loki felt a rusty, creaking facsimile of his old smirk on his lips. "I suppose I should feel sorry about that, but-- "

"No," Sif interrupted. "You should not. What I am sorry for is the fact I was not more ashamed of myself, either at the time or for years afterward. It is only since we paid you that visit in your new home, when I told Annie the story of my hair to make her laugh, that I began to think about what really happened, and realize it was not, after all, such a generous thing, that I was no longer angry at you." She took a deep breath. "It has taken me a very long time to feel the regret and shame I should, but I do, and I apologize for the whole contemptible business, and the way it followed us and poisoned everything for so long. I am sorry. Will you forgive me?"

Speech being an impossibility at the moment, Loki simply nodded. There had been so many attacks and counter-attacks through the years that it was ridiculous to do anything except wipe the slate clean and try to start over. _Until we both turn blue._

There seemed nothing more to say, so he was surprised when Sif spoke up again:

"And now that you know I was not an innocent victim of malice, that it was _my_ childish spite that brought on _his_ childish spite, and that was probably not the only time we were just as guilty as he was, can we please, _please_ leave the past behind us, and try to begin again?"

It took a moment to realize Sif was not speaking to him. Loki looked up and realized she was looking at the Warriors Three, who were looking back at her.

Hogun was impassive.

Volstagg looked hopeful.

And Fandral nodded.


	11. Chapter 11

It was, perhaps, not surprising that Loki had trouble getting to sleep that night. He did his best not to toss and turn and keep George and Mitchell awake, but it was hard going. He found himself at last in a curled-up posture that approximated the way he had to sleep at home, in the too-short, too-narrow bed in his cramped little box room. The realization gave him such a jolt of homesickness that he finally sat up.

Mitchell raised his head. "You all right?" he asked quietly. His voice did not sound like that of someone who had just been awakened.

"Fine," Loki whispered. "I am going out for a walk."

Mitchell sat up. "Do you want me-- ?"

Loki reached out and patted his friend's leg through the blankets. "No, no. I just need to move around a little." And get out of the tent. He was beginning to hear noises, which he accepted were mostly in his imagination, but Loki was not one of the people who, hearing noises, stays in his tent and hopes they go away. Even if he was sure it was his imagination, he always felt better if he investigated. Far better to confront than be ambushed.

Loki skirted around George, who seemed to be genuinely asleep-- poor George had had very little chance to recover from the effects of his transformation before all this happened-- toward the flap of the tent. He found a cloak-- a _cloak! Honestly_ \-- bundled up near the entrance, and threw it about his shoulders.

Loki emerged from the tent and realized he had not been imagining the sounds of movement. There was a half-moon over Vanaheim, and by its light he could see Annie, sitting outside the tent she was, for reasons of propriety, sharing with Sif. He raised a hand in greeting and Annie got up, crossed the clearing to join him. She was holding her arms huddled around herself in an uncharacteristic fashion, and Loki asked in some surprise,

"Are you cold?" Annie being a ghost, she never noticed extremes of temperature on Midgard, but on realms with more supportive magic it appeared she was more prey to such things.

"No, I'm fine," Annie replied, which you did not need to be as practiced a liar as Loki to know was a falsehood. Loki shrugged out of the cloak and threw it around her shoulders, to which Annie did not object. Following up with his arms about her-- still to no objection-- he said,

"I have not thanked you, for what you did earlier."

"You didn't look very thankful when I did it," Annie reminded him.

"That was only because I thought you were going to accidentally provoke them into killing me," Loki replied. He paused. "That was a joke."

"No, it wasn't," Annie said.

"No, it wasn't," Loki agreed, with a sigh. Annie, her own arms about him by now, squeezed gently and let him go.

"We're not the only ones who are up," she remarked, tilting her head toward the fire site. Loki turned his head and was not entirely surprised to see Thor, sitting by the cold ashes. He sighed again.

"I suppose I should go have a word with him." Annie said nothing, which surprised Loki, since he knew she was very fond of his brother. "Come now, you're not angry at him? I did tell you that my relationship with my brother was... difficult, for many years."

"You didn't tell me he almost killed you," Annie replied, with asperity.

"I told you I actually did kill him, though," Loki felt compelled to remind her.

"He started it," Annie retorted, and Loki found himself laughing. Now that he was up and moving around, the disturbed feeling that had kept him waking seemed to be going away.

"What if I promise you he feels dreadful about it?" he offered.

"Good."

"I really should go speak to him."

"I'm glad you're so forgiving," Annie grumbled, and Loki laughed again.

"It is a very new development," he replied. "I expect I will revert to homicidal mania at any moment, but in the meantime I am enjoying the new sensation. Come with me?"

"I don't think so," Annie replied. "I... don't feel much like speaking to him right now."

Loki glanced toward the tent where she was supposed to be sleeping. It occurred to him that it was not only Annie's well-known insomnia that had driven her out of the company of even a sleeping Sif.

"It was a long time ago, Annie," he said gently, rather surprised to find he was sincere.

"A long time ago for you and Sif, maybe. It's brand new to the rest of us," she pointed out. Loki leaned down to kiss her, then Annie reached up to lay a hand on his cheek, and stepped back. "Okay. Go talk to your brother."

Loki nodded. "Mitchell was awake when I left our tent. Perhaps he would like-- ?"

"Good idea," Annie replied, caught his hand and squeezed it as he turned away. Loki smiled at her, then crossed the clearing toward his brother.

Thor did not look up when Loki sat down beside him. "Trouble sleeping?" Loki asked, his tone mild.

"Not at all," Thor replied. "I was merely sitting here congratulating myself on being the worst brother in all the Nine Realms. In a moment I will turn in and surely sleep like a baby."

Loki considered him, head on one side. "You know, brother, you have developed quite a talent for sarcasm. I believe it suits you. However, self-loathing does not. It is really more my line."

Thor rubbed his eyes, wearily. "Loki, don't." Loki, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, gave Thor an interrogative look. "I thought Svartelfheim was the worst thing we ever... I was going to _leave_ you with them," Thor said incoherently, apparently uttering the middle part of a conversation he had been having with himself.

Loki blinked. "I'm sorry, brother, but why are you worrying about this _now?_ Do you feel the revelation that a long-ago beating was not entirely justified will make them _more_ likely to attack me as soon as your back is turned?"

Thor looked stunned, and Loki could not help feeling a little impatient as his brother asked, "Do you mean to tell me you have been worrying-- ?"

Loki shrugged. "Not really," he said, only lying a little. "I knew they would not harm me yesterday, not with you coming back here after your visit to Njord. And I was fairly confident Sif would not allow them to really hurt me after you left."

"But if you were alone with them-- ?" Thor said slowly.

"Oh, I never would have agreed to that," Loki assured him. "I have the greatest respect for your loyalty to your friends" -- Thor gave him a raw look, and Loki himself was unable to say just how much sarcasm there was in his own words -- "but I am not entirely stupid."

"It seems to me that our conversations in recent months have consisted almost entirely of me apologizing for events from long ago that turn out to have been entirely different from the way I remember them," Thor remarked.

"Oh," Loki murmured, "I would not say that. There is still considerable scope for me to apologize for events that were exactly as you remember them. The fact your friends were not spotless innocents does not alter the fact I was a rotten little whelp, too."

"You had more assistance than I credited, in becoming that way," Thor muttered.

Loki shrugged. "Of course I did. You knew I was excluded, in no uncertain terms, and my persistence in hanging about gave all of you a great deal of power over me. It would have been unnatural if that power had never been abused. Pathetic as it is to admit, we both know the reason I held onto your group so persistently was because I had no one else. That was simply _asking_ to be abused."

"And was that the only reason you held on?" Thor asked. Loki wondered whether anyone else would have heard the plea in his voice. It occurred to him that he, the long-assumed afterthought, was not the only insecure prince of Asgard.

He reached over and patted Thor's knee. "Well, that and the fact I seemed to be unable to stop loving you, and wishing... Thor, this is pointless. What Sif told us this evening changes nothing between you and me. You were deceived, all those years ago, and besides, you were only a little boy. And Sif was only a little girl, now I come to think of it, and I am glad to know I at least did not play such a nasty trick for no reason at all. The point is, if I was able to put the circumstance out of my mind because they were too humiliating to carry around with me, perhaps she did the same until very recently because they were too shameful. The point is, you and I both knew about that beating, even though you did not know, and I did not remember, that it was only partly deserved."

 _"Deserved?"_ Thor demanded.

"Well, in fairness-- which I concede is unlike me, I must be spending too much time around Annie, George, and Mitchell-- in fairness, I did play the nastiest trick on Sif that I could think of at the time. Provoked or not, I deserved a thumping. Not as severe a one as I got, and probably it would have been more just to simply let it end with the punishment I had from Father, but that is neither here nor there. The point is, knowing more about the circumstances does not change the _fact_ , and the _fact_ is, up until this evening-- yesterday evening, I suppose-- that incident was one of the things for which we have already forgiven each other. Remember?"

Thor didn't respond, and Loki found himself putting an arm around his brother's shoulders. Given Thor's breadth, it was awkward, but Loki's arms were long and he managed. Pulling him close, Loki rested his chin on Thor's shoulder and said into his ear,

"We spent years taking turns being dreadful to each other. And if we are handing out prizes for dreadfulness, I still win." Thor started to say something. Loki dug his chin in, and Thor fell silent. "It's true. But we have forgiven each other, and we have started over, and now the only thing to do now is keep moving forward. I am glad your friends have something new to think about-- it may make a difference, and I confess I do feel a little safer now than I did yesterday-- but it makes no difference at all between you and me."

"Easy for you to say," Thor said stubbornly.

"Well, as Sif pointed out earlier, that is my right. But while you are castigating yourself over what a terrible brother you are, you might also recall that, within far more recent memory, you found me in a state of unreasoning terror, shackled for my own apparent safety, and the only thing that saved me was that you first freed me, and then let me cling to you for protection and reassurance until my wits returned."

"You would have recovered eventually, without my assistance," Thor insisted.

"Perhaps. All I can tell you is, from the moment you arrived I began to get better, and that was because you understood what I needed. If you had not been there, I might still be raving and trying to escape from people who meant well but kept doing things to frighten me even worse. I don't think I could have stood being chained for much longer without really losing my mind. Again. Once was enough, I can assure you.

"And then, after the incident with Dr. Strange, when I was so distraught that I attacked poor Tony Stark-- if you had not been there, I certainly would have ended in being locked up again for everyone's safety. It would have been necessary, and it probably would have finished me." Loki tightened his arm, leaned closer, and said softly, "I have not yet thanked you for all that. So, thank you. I am more grateful than I can tell you, that you were there for me when I needed you so badly."

Thor made an uncomfortable movement of his shoulders, although he did not try to dislodge Loki's arm. "It was the least I could do. I seem to recall an incident not long ago that ended with a sword through my chest. If _you_ had not been there-- "

Loki laughed, moved the arm around Thor's shoulders so it hooked gently around his neck instead, leaned his forehead briefly against the side of Thor's head, and let go. "You see? Now we are taking turns _not_ being dreadful to each other. It is much pleasanter, though perhaps it is best if we stop keeping score. As you said before, we spent too many of our younger years being arseholes. We are probably still arseholes much of the time, but at least now we are trying to be better. Let us agree to just keep trying. All right?"

"I keep forgetting," Thor said, "how much brighter you are than I."

"Fortunately, I am here to remind you. And now we should probably both get some sleep." Loki made to rise, paused, then added, "I do love you, brother. And I know you love me. Now go to bed."

~oOo~

Tony had seen Steve irritated before-- usually because of Tony, to be honest-- but he couldn't think of the last time he'd seen Captain America this angry. He hadn't even been this mad over what happened to Loki, although that was mostly because he'd been too busy trying to help solve the problem to stop and think very hard about how it happened.

"We can't be positive that Fury's one of the questionable prisoners in the cells right now," Tony reminded him, and was surprised (and frankly a little delighted) when Steve cursed at him. Steve wasn't any good at it, of course, he only knew about four swear words, but he put them together in a surprising number of new and interesting combinations.

Tony only found Steve's rage amusing because it was the only thing available to distract Tony from his own anger and anxiety. Clearing his throat, he gestured at the chair across the desk from him and tried to focus.

"Okay. Sit down, Steve. I can make you some chamomile tea if you want. Or maybe I can ask Pepper to make it-- "

"You can ask," Pepper agreed, perfectly pleasantly, which sounded very much like "not on your life."

"Right. Anyway. Sit down, and let's think about this sensibly."

With obvious reluctance, Steve sat. Tony considered that a victory. He felt a little less victorious when Steve announced, "I'm only going along with this out of sheer curiosity. I would have been willing to bet 'sensible' was completely beyond you."

Tony grinned at him, and then got down to business. Perfectly sensibly.

"Okay. So far, we know that, unless Fury's got an offshore bank account I can't find-- "

"Unlikely," Pepper said judiciously.

"Unlikely," Tony agreed. "Unless he does have such a bank account, and it's hidden better than most, he's not accessing funds from anywhere, which probably means he's missing as opposed to fishing. And he might very well be a prisoner of SHIELD, but the spy devices in his house are Hammer Industries tech. SHIELD doesn't deal with Hammer Industries, because I checked. Closely."

"So you figure Fury's been kidnapped by one group, and SHIELD has independently gone bonkers at exactly the same time?" Steve demanded. Like Thor, Steve seemed to have developed a rather nice line of his own in sarcasm since he started to hang around with Tony. It was gratifying.

"I agree, that doesn't sound very likely," Tony admitted. "And it doesn't address the problem of Dr. Strange, who is currently nowhere to be found, and has apparently been living like some sort of a pod person since... well, since around the same time Fury disappeared."

"To say nothing of the fact that, according to Coulson, his overture to Loki was completely out of character," Steve said. He hesitated. "I'm never sure how much credence I should give to arguments like, 'this just isn't like him.'"

"None," Tony replied immediately. "Unless it's Coulson saying it, in which case you give it all the credence. The benefit of being the least sentimental human being in existence is, your judgment is pretty well always trustworthy. If Coulson says Strange is Snape, I believe him."

"I guess I need to look up this Snape," Steve said.

"You should really read the books, the minute you have a chance. But, to summarize, he's a highly unlikable character in the _Harry Potter_ children's books, a guy who is nasty and unkind-- but not a villain."

"That's a pretty sophisticated concept, for children's literature," Steve mused.

"Children's literature is pretty much the only place you find sophisticated concepts anymore, outside of course of conversation with me." Steve and Pepper both snorted. Tony made an expansive gesture. "Okay. Fury's disappeared. Strange's personality has disappeared. SHIELD has gone nuts. And Maria Hill seems to have presided over the whole process, or at the very least her timeline coincides with all of it." The trio exchanged a three-way look.

"Hmm," Steve said finally. "Might be time to give that some thought."

~oOo~

Loki was not often grateful for Hogun, but the following morning he did appreciate the fact the grim-faced Warrior was the only member of the group aside from Coulson who seemed to be behaving normally. He spoke in monosyllables, those only when a grunt would not suffice, and for the most part ignored everyone. This was impolite and ungracious and totally normal for Hogun.

Agent Coulson was also his usual unflappable self, behaving as though travel through space and between realms was as familiar to him as a trip to the local coffee shop. Although, now Loki came to think of it, perhaps Coulson spent half his life traveling through space and time, and that was why nothing ever seemed to fluster him.

Loki was indeed grateful for Coulson and Hogun, because everyone else was extremely awkward this morning. Sif, Fandral, and Volstagg made such a point to be cordial to Loki that, in spite of himself, he began to worry about what they might be planning to do to him when he let his guard down.

And his own friendly, personable housemates were more distant and chilly to Thor and his friends than Loki had ever seen them be to anyone except the nastier sort of vampire. It was not that he wasn't grateful to his friends for taking his part, because he was. It was still a rather delightful novelty, at least in theory. It was just the whole atmosphere was so miserably tense that Loki hardly knew what to do with himself.

"Please," he pleaded quietly to Mitchell, when he could not stand it anymore. "Please, speak to them. Make an effort. For me."

"I'm not doing it on purpose," Mitchell protested. "I just... I just can't think of a single thing I want to say to them."

"That's the situation I'm in," George agreed, which was understandable, since George had surely been a target of bullying bigger children when he was a bespectacled little boy, and of bullying vampires after he became a werewolf. "I have nothing to say to them."

"I do," Annie said darkly. She glanced at Loki and softened. "But I won't. I promise."

"I'm sorry," Loki said to Thor, as Thor prepared to return to Midgard after the morning meal. "I have tried-- "

"Don't." Thor gripped his shoulder, a little harder than was comfortable. Then he noticed Loki's anxious face and softened both the grip and his expression. "Don't. Of course they are angry. They are _your_ friends."

"They do like you," Loki heard himself saying forlornly.

"But they are _your_ friends," Thor repeated. "And we hurt you, and so they dislike us for it. At some point we will probably be able to make amends, but at the moment they are angry." He smiled, a touch wistfully. "You deserve that, to have friends who take your part. I am quite sure nothing will happen to cause them to get angrier, and one day we will all be friends again. Now, I must go. Do not look so worried." He hugged Loki, walked across the clearing, and called to Heimdall to open the Bifrost. A moment later, he was gone.

Loki composed his face into the best approximation he could manage of his old expression, the one Sif referred to as "all the doors barred and the shutters closed," as he turned around to face the others. He had no idea how this mutually distrustful, angry group was going to get through the next few days.

And when he came to think about it-- he still felt no magic stirring within him. Until that returned, he could not count on safely returning home, at least not until Thor and his companions dealt with SHIELD. He tried not to think about the possibility of himself and his friends being stranded here indefinitely. There was a limit to how long these disparate groups could possibly get along, to say nothing of the fact they all had lives they wanted to return to. He did not like to think how much worse the atmosphere was going to get when the Warriors became impatient to go home.

Which made him think about the school, and the fact he had, though through little fault of his own, been not exactly a model employee lately, what with missing so much time in the course of being repeatedly abducted. He tried not to wonder whether Carol would be willing to give him another chance. And then, of course, he began to worry about George and Mitchell's jobs at the hospital, and the possible repercussions of their disappearances.

The closed, shuttered expression was not faring very well by the time Loki got himself turned around. Annie immediately started forward, and Sif, more anxious than he had ever seen her, spoke up quickly.

"I think you should know about Thor's and my visit to Njord's palace."

Loki blinked at her, for a moment unable to process her remark past the anxieties flooding through him, and then he remembered the look they had exchanged the day before. He and Sif had wordlessly conspired to avoid worrying Thor. There was something going on that she felt he should know.

"Of course," Loki was quickly, trying to pretend he had not been confused. "Tell me."

Sif led the way back to the firesite and everyone sat down, Sif and the Warriors on one site, Loki and his housemates on the other, Agent Coulson between Loki and Sif. Loki leaned forward, trying to reflect only interest in what Sif was about to tell him.

She glanced at him, then at the hostile faces of the previously friendly Midgardian housemates, and something in her expression broke. Loki realized that she was not used to being the villain, could not stand being the villain, and he had a moment to wonder whether it was the disapproval she could not stand, or whether she, too, had a raven seated on her shoulder, and it was the feeling of being stabbed through the heart that bothered her.

Whatever her reasons, Sif looked at her own friends, and then at Loki's, and stopped pretending the uncomfortable silence was not there:

"I know that what I told you last night has upset you. Has made you terribly angry, and rightly so. That was not the only time we were cruel to... to your friend. It was also not the last time we could have done him a terrible injury-- perhaps you have heard of the occasion we deliberately left him behind on one of our expeditions?"

"Disguised as a fox, I believe," George spoke up. "For-- what? A week?"

"Yes. Until the Allfather realized it was not a game or a wager, and went to his rescue." Sif looked around and plunged on, "And the whole time, while Thor was trying desperately to rescue Loki himself, and worrying he would never see his brother again, the rest of us... Behind Thor's back, we were laughing at what a fine pelt Loki would make for some trapper. And we meant it, we thought it would be funny, we thought it would solve all of our problems, if he was killed and skinned and we never had to see him again. Loki had provoked us, of course he had, many times, but he had certainly not done anything to us that he deserved to _die_ for. Perhaps we would have actually been sorry if it had really come to pass, but our lack of concern horrifies me now. We were not children, when we did that.

"And we were not children, not really, though we were younger, it was years earlier, when we started the game of trying to break into Loki's rooms. That really did begin in fun, after Thor was turned into a rooster when he went spying, but we did not tell Loki it was in fun, and after a while the fact he felt so harassed and desperate began to be the entertainment in itself. And we never stopped to think, the reason there was a charm on the doors in the first place probably meant he was already afraid of us. The servants who cleaned the chambers, his mother-- none of them were ever turned into chickens."

"Sif, why are you telling us all of this?" Loki asked wearily.

"Because, for my part, I have been feeling guilty and ashamed about all of it, ever since Thor and I traveled to Bristol. It had never occurred to me... it had never crossed my mind, that you had your own perspective on everything that happened when we were children, everything that happened since then. I realized then, for the first time... I always knew there was a great deal of anger in you, but it had never occurred to me to wonder _why_ you were angry, to realize that hurt and loneliness had turned into anger after all those years. It was unbelievably stupid of me, not to realize that without being told. It was as if I believed you had no thoughts or ideas or feelings of your own, that you were motivated by wickedness for its own sake. And then Thor told us of that conversation you had in the cave, after he was run through with the enchanted sword and you saved him-- "

Loki felt blood rush to his face, remembering how unguarded, how... _abject_... he had been, confessing his anger and jealousy and madness to his brother. And Thor had _told?_

A moment later, sanity returned: of course Thor had told. Everyone knew what Loki had _done_. What he had _done_ was obvious. What was not quite so clear to the rest of Asgard, even now, was _why_ he had done it. Of course Thor had tried to make everyone understand.

Or, at least, he had tried to make his friends understand. It seemed he had had some luck with at least one of them.

Sif was only looking at Loki now: "It did not occur to us, or to me at any rate, just how treacherous we were, when we tried to bring Thor back to overthrow you. It did not occur to me that we did not even give you a _chance_ , even when we believed Thor had been justly banished, and the Allfather was sleeping, and _someone_ had to be ruler in the meantime. It never crossed my mind, until Thor told me, that of course you had not made any effort to hurt Thor, to hurt us, until we did that, and you finally broke and sent the Destroyer. I am not saying you were right, but the fact you were tormented into doing much of what you did has to be considered. And the fact that, once again, we made things worse-- I felt less like congratulating myself for heroism, is all.

"And you seem to be doing rather well, away from Asgard, at _not_ committing evil. It makes me question my assumption that Thor and the Warriors and I were all that held back your natural malevolence all this time. I said last night that I was sorry for my part in the hair incident and all that came after it. I did not go far enough. I need for you to know that I realize there was more to the disaster that led to your exile than 'Loki was born wicked.' I need for you to know that I am sorry."

"Loki's sorry too, but he's still banished," Annie spoke up, and the coldness in her voice did something to Loki's heart.

"Please, Annie, don't. Don't be merciless," he pleaded. Annie's eyebrows went up.

"And why should _I_ be different from _them?"_ she demanded, gesturing at Sif and the Warriors.

"Because... because I _need_ you to be," Loki blurted. Annie stared at him and Loki blundered on, "I already _know_ how to be merciless. I learned that many years ago, and entirely too well. I just... I don't _want_ to be, anymore... What I need from you, and from George and Mitchell, is something else entirely. Please." Annie hesitated, and Loki pressed on, "It wasn't all their fault, any more than it was all mine, and thinking all the fault is on one side or the other is part of what led to all this trouble: they only saw my flaws, and I only saw theirs, and we none of us were able to see anything else. I did play nasty tricks on them when we were children, quite apart from the times I was defending myself. I did so because I was angry and lonely, but nasty tricks would do nothing to make them soften toward me, and I knew that as I played them.

"And later, yes, I was provoked, but I did do terrible things. Things you would never have dreamed of doing, under any circumstances. They are not entirely wrong about me, although a little more mercy and understanding in the first place might have helped us avoid all of this. It is done, and the only thing that can help us _now_ is mercy and understanding _now_. Please."

Volstagg and Fandral's faces were, Loki thought vaguely, really quite hilarious. They looked as if they wanted to search Annie, George and Mitchell's pockets to find where they had hidden the real Loki. Annie, for her part, looked ashamed of herself-- which tore at Loki's heart, because for _Annie_ , of all people in this group, for _her_ to be the one who felt ashamed--

She leaned toward him, wrapped her arms around him. "All right. I'll try again. We'll forgive each other."

"Until we both turn blue," Loki murmured as he hugged her in return, then wondered both why he kept thinking of that silly phrase, and why it struck him as so strangely comforting. "Thank you," he added, releasing her and making a hasty swipe at his eyes before he turned back to Sif. "You were going to tell us about Njord?"

"Yes," Sif said, obviously scrambling to catch up with the change of subject. It occurred to Loki that she might have preferred, might have felt better, if Annie had been allowed more scope to expand upon Sif's iniquities. Definitely a raven on her shoulder, then.

Sif composed herself, and her report sounded very much like one she might have given to Thor:

"Njord is receiving a visit from Byleistr, the Jotun king, the day after tomorrow. He was preoccupied with preparations for that. Because Thor is well known to be in the confidence of his father, Njord let slip that Vanaheim has been the recipient of hostile overtures from the Jotun as well."

"When you say 'as well,'" Loki interrupted, "do you mean 'as well as Asgard'?"

"Yes," Sif replied. "In the past few weeks, relations have soured dramatically: the Jotun are making demands not only about for the return of the Casket of Eternal Winters, but for the right to expand their territory, at the expense of other realms. And all this after both Asgard and Vanaheim have offered assistance in restoring their realm-- not just the most recent damage" -- that was tactful of her, when what she referred to was the damage done by Odin's lunatic second son -- "but also that from the last war."

Loki remembered what Jotunheim looked like, on his visits, before and after Thor's aborted coronation. The realm was in tatters, Laufey having furiously refused to make any concessions that might have encouraged other realms to assist them in rebuilding. Loki realized now that the continuing desperation and anger of the Jotun people was probably what Laufey had wanted, resentment kept just off the boil in case Laufey could find weapons and an excuse to once again declare war and avenge his own defeat, if not that of his people. The more desperate the Jotun populace was, the easier Laufey's task would be, if he ever found the means to make war.

But even Laufey had declined to take up the provocation offered by Thor, under Loki's manipulation, not until it became utterly outrageous. Loki had only ever had a little contact with his blood father, and that when Loki was manipulating him toward his doom-- Loki felt guilty about almost everything he had done, from the introduction of Frost Giants into the weapons vault before Thor's planned coronation, right up to the awful destruction that had rained down upon the helpless Jotun population when Loki's mind finally snapped, but he was unable to feel even a flicker of regret for killing the being who had discarded his son and murdered his wife--

Loki's contact with his blood father had been brief, but he had received the impression of an implacably vengeful mind. And yet, even Laufey had better sense than to renew war when Jotunheim was in such terrible shape. He refused to make any concessions that might relieve the population, but he at least had sense enough not to sacrifice them outright. And now the new king--

"This was not how Byleistr's reign began, was it?" Loki said now.

Sif shook her head, and Volstagg spoke up eagerly. Loki remembered, when Thor had the story of Laufey's murdered queen from a visiting Jotun counselor, Volstagg had also been present. Now, the huge warrior contributed:

"When they visited, they seemed truly bent upon conciliation. The King's council seemed... they seemed relieved. It was as though, after so many centuries of Laufey's single-mindedness-- " Volstagg hesitated, and Loki suddenly realized he was hesitant to denigrate Loki's sire to his face.

"Say what you wish about him, Volstagg. I murdered him, remember?" Loki said, almost amused.

The remark hardly put Volstagg at ease, but he did go on:

"They seemed honestly hopeful. As if they were optimistic about their new king's judgment and concern for the realm and its people. As though there was much they would be glad to put behind them, and they thought that was what was going to happen."

"And now, little more than a Midgardian year later, this hopeful new king is threatening war on two fronts, and for the most specious of reasons," Loki said. "He must be mad."

"The fact he's involving Vanaheim makes it unlikely your actions have anything to do with it," Coulson spoke up, addressing Loki. "It wasn't very likely anyway, since if I've got the timeline right he took the throne after your-- "

"Attack, assault, infamy," Loki supplied a few possible terms. "Yes, Jotunheim's previous ruler died a few moments before I turned the Bifrost on the realm and attempted to destroy it. Byleistr became king in the aftermath of all that."

"And was conciliatory in the aftermath of all that," Coulson said. "And now he's completely reversed himself. He's got to have allies. If his own realm" -- it was almost amusing, how naturally Coulson picked up on the usage appropriate to whatever group he found himself in -- "doesn't have the strength to fight these wars, he's got to be expecting help from somewhere."

"He didn't seem like that," Volstagg murmured, crestfallen. Loki found himself very interested in the big warrior's reaction. He had no special regard for Volstagg's intelligence-- although of course he had never had much for Thor's, either, and had turned out to be wrong about that-- but he had no reason to think Volstagg was impaired in his ability to assess another's personality. The fact he had such a reaction to that visit, powerful enough that he actually seemed disappointed to learn his lifelong enemies were apparently deceitful... well, that was interesting.

Rather than assuming it meant Volstagg was stupid, Loki found himself considering the possibility that something had simply changed very drastically between then and now.

"He really seemed to want peace?" Loki asked Volstagg directly.

"Truly, he did. His counselors, old Helblindi-- I liked him-- they all seemed to. They didn't go so far as to say you had done them a favour, but there were no tears shed for Laufey, at least."

"Hmm." Loki had once been ruled primarily by suspicion, accompanied by a healthy bump of inquisitiveness. Nowadays the traits were more or less reversed, at least when he was at home: he found himself more honestly curious than suspicious, most of the time. But at the moment both traits seemed equally ascendant, and he badly wanted to know what was going on.

It wasn't just curiosity: Loki had no affection for the Asgardian court, but he certainly wanted no harm to come to his parents in a war. And besides, he had spent months living as a commoner on Midgard, mingling with other common Midgardians and being endlessly entertained by their children. His perceptions of Asgardian commoners seemed to have been affected by these experiences, and as a result he now had very little desire for ordinary Asgardians to die in a war with Jotunheim.

Hypocritical as it probably seemed, he was no more eager for such a fate to befall the Jotun common people, who probably also wanted simply to live their lives and raise their families and be left in peace. If he could only find out what was behind this new aggression, what was emboldening Byleistr... or perhaps goading him, pushing him, unwilling, into war-- that was possible as well, and might explain his apparent change of heart...

If he could do that, perhaps... perhaps he could genuinely do something productive, not only for Asgard, but for the Jotun. If the threat could be averted without bloodshed on either side, if Byleistr could be persuaded to abandon his aggressions, if Odin and Njord would then agree to assist the people of Jotunheim despite the near miss, if some sort of lasting peace could be arranged after all...

That would be... that would be amends. Even if the Jotun themselves never knew Loki was responsible, _he_ would know. It would not make up for the harm he had caused, but it would be _something_. It would...

Loki suddenly realized his imagination was running ahead of his common sense, and also perhaps that he had read too many books from the school library that included happy endings. Slow down. One thing at a time. First, make an effort to learn what was motivating the king.

He turned to Sif.

"You say the Jotun contingent arrive the day after tomorrow?"


	12. Chapter 12

The most strenuous objections, surprisingly, came from Fandral.

"Loki, no. I admit that I have no love for you, and I probably never will, but I swore to your brother that I would let no harm befall you. This is madness."

"Oh, no," Loki replied evenly. "I remember madness rather well, and this feels nothing like it. Recklessness, I grant you."

"Recklessness that could get you killed," Fandral snapped. He cast a raw look at Sif and added, "And despite… cruel jokes… I did _not_ want you to die on Svartelfheim." On consideration, Loki believed him. Or at least, Loki believed Fandral meant it _now,_ whatever he had felt when they were younger. He decided that was enough. Fandral looked at Loki, met his eyes for the first time in who-knew-how-long, and went on, "Nor do I wish for it to happen now." He swallowed, and added gruffly, "Please, Loki, reconsider. For Thor's sake, at least."

Loki felt his face go stiff, and Sif rushed into speech.

"At least let one of us come with you," she pleaded, apparently realizing Loki was every bit as stubborn as his brother and there would be no changing his mind.

Loki shook his head. "No. None of you could convincingly portray servants. And besides, Sif, you are now known in the court."

"I could disguise myself," Sif argued.

Loki could not help it, he had to laugh. "Clearly, you underestimate the impression you make on others. No, it is impossible. I, however, have not been seen by Njord or any of his people since childhood." His lips twisted into something like a smile. "And it is _highly_ unlikely that I will be given away by someone noticing a resemblance between me and one of my parents. A small group of infiltrators is safest. Agent Coulson is a master of concealment in plain sight, Annie could not be viewed as anything but innocent, and I am a sneak. The three of us can blend into the household staff, wait at table or in the guest chambers, and find out what we can."

"Loki, if you are caught spying-- " Sif tried again.

Loki shrugged. "If we are caught by Njord, he will probably think Odin is trying to learn something to both their advantages. If we are caught by the Jotun... well, we will have to avoid that, is all."

~oOo~

The first part of Loki's plan went so smoothly it was nearly enough to make him suspect a trap: the Jotun visit had been announced, in high-handed and entirely undiplomatic fashion, on quite short notice. Because many of the royal couple's own servants had already travelled to the homeland of the queen, to prepare for the arrival of the king and queen in their second home, the palace had brought in extra servants from within the town. Between the influx of newcomers and the fact the Vanir palace was nearly as large as that of Asgard, it was understandable if not every face was immediately known to everyone else.

The Jotun visitors were to be quartered in an envoys' hall much like the one where Loki and his friends had stayed upon their arrival in Asgard. Loki, Annie, and Coulson joined the work crew assigned to dismantle most of the contents of the living quarters and replace them with much larger, austere furnishings that could support the weight of both Frost Giants and the ice they would conjure for their comfort. Loki made especial note of the rooms to be occupied by King Byleistr.

"It is vitally important," he warned his associates, "that we do not permit the Jotun to touch us. Coulson, the touch of a Frost Giant burns the unprotected flesh of Aesir, let alone mortals. You could be seriously injured by such contact. Annie, I doubt any harm would befall you, but that in itself would draw unwanted attention to you."

"What about you?" Coulson asked. "You look like an Aesir, but since you're Jotun underneath, their touch shouldn't hurt you, either. Right?"

"Right. It would, however, cause me to transform into a Jotun myself, or at least a tiny, malformed version of a Jotun. In terms of drawing unwanted attention, that could hardly be improved upon." Loki glanced at the other two, smiled at Annie's apprehensive face. "It is very unlikely any of them will try to touch us, unless they are bent upon starting a war right now: King Njord would hardly stand for what amounted to an assault on his own servants, in his own home. No matter how rash Byleistr has become, it is doubtful he would do something that overt, unless he has brought a full complement of troops, which does not seem to be his plan. We shall be meek, and alert, and we shall be fine."

About twelve hours later, Loki had occasion to remind himself of the Midgardian saying that referred to "famous last words."

~oOo~

"Sure this is a smart idea, Tony?" Steve asked out of the side of his mouth.

"Of course it is," Tony replied breezily. "I'm a genius, remember?"

"Right. I keep forgetting," Steve muttered.

"Besides, I'm tired of skulking," Tony added.

"I admit, it's not really my style either," Steve reluctantly agreed.

Tony, carrying what looked like an attache case but in fact was one of his highly portable "suitcase suits," walked openly across the restaurant to a table occupied by a trim African-American man in an Air Force dress uniform.

"Rhodey!" Tony exclaimed, expanding into his playboy role, as he approached the table.

Air Force Lt. Colonel James "Rhodey" Rhodes stood as the other two approached, nodded to Tony in a way that suggested this was not the first time Tony had done something he thought was ill-advised, unwise, or just plain silly. He was slightly warmer when introduced to Steve.

"Pleasure," he said briefly, but with a remarkably engaging smile, as he shook hands.

"Same," Steve returned.

"So, Tony, what do you want?" Rhodes asked, in a tone that suggested whatever Tony wanted, both of them knew he was going to get it.

"How much do you know about what's going on at SHIELD right now?" Tony asked bluntly.

"Why would I know anything about SHIELD?" Rhodes parried.

"I don't know, War Machine, I just thought you might," Tony replied, with a friendly smile. He glanced at Steve. "Rhodey here has always been more patient with hierarchies than I am. Sometimes that leads to the teacher's pet getting inside gossip that I don't."

"Yeah, I've noticed you mostly seem to tolerate hierarchies that have you at the top of them," Steve agreed. Tony laughed, and Rhodes, without acknowledging the aside, replied,

"I know they're mad enough at you that I'm surprised you've got the balls to show up in public like this."

Tony shrugged. "Only thing that's bigger than my brain, man." Steve glanced up apologetically at the waitress who had arrived to fill their water glasses, and kicked Tony under the table. Tony barely winced. "Seriously, Rhodey, we need to know where their new direction is coming from. When Fury was first replaced, it looked like a change of leadership rather than a total change of course, but things have taken a turn for the weird lately."

"The way I heard it, things took a turn for the weird when you busted a dangerous alien out of SHIELD custody," Rhodey returned.

"Yeah, he's a very dangerous guy. He was especially dangerous when Steve here had to carry him into the house because he'd been tortured so bad he was barely conscious. I get that there's a particular paranoid mindset that came from Maria Hill, but someone had to make the decision to replace Fury with her. Who's SHIELD's point man in Washington these days?"

Rhodey sighed. "Stern."

Tony frankly stared. " _Marvin_ Stern? _Senator_ Marvin Stern? The idiot who tried to compel me to turn over the Iron Man suit so _Justin Hammer_ could monkey around with it?"

Rhodes looked patient. "You underestimate his abilities, Tony."

"Only because it's almost impossible to get my mind around how stupid he actually is. When did this happen, and why didn't anyone tell the Avengers?"

Rhodes shrugged. "The information was given out on a need-to-know basis, and it was felt the Avengers didn't. Speaking of teacher's pets, Tony, there was a lot of discomfort about the way Fury seemed to look at you guys as his own personal wrecking squad. Hill knows how to follow orders, and to follow a chain of command."

"And Stern is in command," Tony said, just to make sure.

"Well, he oversees the agency for the government," Rhodes said.

"And who oversees Stern?" Tony asked. It was mostly a rhetorical question, and the fact Rhodey looked sheepish for a second didn't surprise Tony. Of course Stern was largely unsupervised. That probably explained the way Hill's paranoia was being allowed to infect the entire agency: being at least twice as bright as Stern, she was in effect largely unsupervised, herself.

One thing this did not explain was:

"Okay, and at what point did SHIELD get into bed with Hammer Industries?" Tony asked.

Rhodes looked genuinely puzzled. "What do you mean?" His eyebrows went up. "You're beginning to sound a little paranoid, yourself, Tony. There's no agreement between SHIELD and Hammer."

"They're using Hammer spy devices," Steve chipped in, and that visibly gave Rhodes pause. It looked like he was willing to believe Tony had slipped the leash and was gone rogue, but he did not think the same of Captain America.

"Are you sure?" Rhodes asked.

"Yes," Steve replied, although technically the answer was "no," since he and Tony didn't have _proof_ the microphones planted in Fury's house had been put there by SHIELD. They just _knew_ it, which normally wasn't enough for Steve. In a case like this, though, where there didn't seem to be anything solid to hold into, from trust in their leadership on down, Steve was willing to rely on his instincts.

"Oh," Rhodes said.

"Can you get us a meeting with Stern?" Tony asked. "Preferably without him knowing we're going to be there." Rhodes started to object, and Tony leaned forward. "Please, Rhodey. There's something wrong here, and for everyone's sake-- and I mean _everyone's_ \-- we need to find out what."

Rhodes hesitated a second longer, and then he nodded.

~oOo~

Ordinarily, Loki would have availed himself of a harmless glamour to ensure he was not challenged as he entered the envoys' hall-- something along the lines of the charm employed by the old sorcerer in the movie about the wars among the stars: "These are not the droids you are looking for."

As it was, lacking his magic, or at any rate access to his magic, Loki found himself unusually apprehensive about what might happen, were he and his companions to be challenged as they attempted entry to the quarters of the Jotun guests, in their guise of harmless servants. The Jotun delegation had arrived some hours before, and was currently being entertained to a banquet by their uneasy Vanir hosts. This seemed the most opportune time to investigate their belongings, if they could gain entrance. It was not, therefore, the best time for Loki to be without sorcery.

In retrospect, he was impressed but should not have been terribly surprised when Annie solved the problem.

"Here," she said, handing Loki and Coulson a few more items on top of their existing armloads of household objects. Carrying the absolute bare minimum of anything, which was not like Annie, she led the way toward the guard at the gate to the hall.

"I was told to do a final look-round, to make sure everything's ready for the guests when they return from the banquet," she explained, all guileless big brown eyes. The guard looked at her, and then reluctantly glanced toward her heavily-laden companions, and more willingly back to Annie. She favoured him with a smile that should, in Loki's opinion, have rendered him happily unconscious, and said brightly, "These nice men have offered to carry some things for me."

It seemed necessary at this point to do something to support Annie's efforts, but not draw too much attention from the guard. Loki settled for turning a dopey, smitten look upon her (it felt… not unfamiliar… on his face, which was a little embarrassing) while Coulson rolled his eyes at Loki and looked long-suffering. The guard apparently read the situation before him and deemed it harmless, because he waved them through the gates with no further questions.

"That," Coulson said very quietly, "was good work."

 _"'Good work'?"_ Loki whispered back, incredulous. "It was practically sorcery."

"We all have our little talents," Annie said smugly. "All right-- what next?"

Now they were inside, it seemed they were accepted as harmless additions to the furnishings. That being the whole point, they made their way quite openly to the chambers designated for the Jotun king. Despite the scramble of preparations beforehand, Loki was surprised to note there were no Jotun body servants in evidence, nor were any Vanir attendants assigned to Byleistr. The corridor was also unexpectedly empty.

"Annie, we need a lookout, and your ability to transport yourself rapidly from place to place and then vanish makes you ideal," Loki said in a swift undertone. Annie opened her mouth, and then closed it, apparently realizing that, while Loki was certainly trying to protect her, his words also made sense.

So far, so good. The next part would probably be more difficult.

"Agent Coulson, I think it best if you investigate the chambers of the other Jotun, and leave the king to me." The king's chambers were the riskiest to infiltrate: if a spy was caught there, there was a good possibility he would not live to be taken to Njord for questioning or punishment. Loki was, in part, counting on his own ability to talk his way out of any trouble he might get into, but he was also reluctant to expose Coulson to this much risk in a cause in which his interests played no part. It seemed poor repayment to the SHIELD agent for having rescued him.

Coulson's expression remained impassive, but his eyes were very sharp as he replied,

"My grandmother used to say that two heads are better than one."

"I know, but I wish for you to keep yours," Loki replied grimly. "You are putting yourself in considerable danger as it is, and have already come to harm by assisting me. This particular risk should not, I think, be shared."

Coulson was too old a hand to waste time in argument. As he moved away, however, he remarked,

"You know, Loki, not _everything_ is your fault. So you don't need to fix _everything_ all by yourself." Before Loki could think of a suitable response, Coulson was gone.

And then there was no time to reflect on what the agent might have meant, because there was little time and a significant space to search. Loki had no idea what he might be looking for, but anything that seemed out of place would be a place to start.

Despite the fact it was now nominally occupied, the chamber remained utterly stark. Loki found this rather eerie. It seemed to him that _some_ sign of habitation was only natural. When he fell from the Bifrost and landed in the garden in Bristol, to be taken in by Annie with nothing save what he stood up in, he had still managed to rumple the cushions of the couch he slept upon that first afternoon, and had generated a few crumbs and a mustard smear on the plate that had held the ham sandwich Annie gave him. Just by dint of being _alive,_ it seemed one should leave signs of one's existence.

Byleistr, the Jotun king, should have made some impact upon his surroundings, and yet he had not. Loki accepted that perhaps ice, or whatever Jotuns used as bed linens and the like, might only be generated when the king retired for the night, but even so…

No faithful Jotun retainers. No one guarding the chamber. No sign of luggage. It was strange.

Loki laid out the wash basin and pitcher of water he had carried in, fully aware this was probably unnecessary to a being so closely related to ice, and left a towel folded over his arm to be the final touch he would be in the process of leaving behind if someone came in. Then he began a careful search of the apparently empty room.

He found only one item of interest, but it was of great interest indeed: at the back of a wardrobe was a battered leather dispatch case, with locking straps which needed a key to open them. A human would have called it an old bag, because of course mortals did not live long enough to have a real perspective on the relative age of anything. Loki estimated from the condition of the leather that it was some forty or fifty years old, but what struck him most forcibly was the fact it was of recognizably _Midgardian_ construction.

What would the _king of Jotunheim_ be doing with a Midgardian document case?

Loki immediately set about finding out. Lacking magic was something of a handicap, but certain of his other talents were not lost to him, and one of these was the ability to manipulate locks. He had taken the precaution of arming himself with a sturdy darning needle liberated from a sewing basket in the servants' quarters. The case yielded to his efforts almost immediately, revealing a sheaf of paper-- _Midgardian_ paper, with the sort of print upon it that was created by _Midgardian_ computer-printing devices.

Loki quite forgot himself for a second in his interest, and thus nearly jumped out of his skin when Annie appeared at his elbow.

"The king is on his way," she reported, an edge of panic creeping into her voice. It occurred to Loki that the only Jotun she had ever seen was him, briefly, when he shifted into that form in an effort to drive away a vampire. At the time she had been too concerned about the vampire's threats to be very upset by Loki's transformation. Apparently the real thing, especially under these circumstances, had unnerved her.

"Find Coulson and get out of here," Loki ordered, rifling through the papers and selecting one that appeared to have some sort of markings on it that might help identify its source. He caught a glimpse on a top corner of an image that looked like a cephalopod, then he folded it and slipped it into his shirt, mentally cursing his inability to create a magical hiding place into which the document might be placed.

Annie hesitated, unwilling to leave him. "Go," Loki insisted. "Get Coulson out of here." That phrasing seemed to work, and Annie vanished as Loki snapped the locks back into place on the document case.

He had just stowed it deep in the wardrobe and made it back to the washstand when there was a rush of cold air. The chamber door opened and the Jotun king entered, alone.

It was just as well that his cover as a servant called for Loki to appear intimidated in the presence of the Frost Giant, because even knowing his own heritage did very little to dispel the apprehension engendered by proximity to one.

Loki had had dealings with Jotun before this, had manipulated and betrayed them just as he had the Aesir. Knowing he could make use of the giants, could make fools of them if he needed to, had done nothing to change his fear, ingrained by years of stories told by nursemaids who probably only wanted to frighten him a little, so he would stay in bed where he belonged lest the monsters hiding in the shadows leap out at him.

They were not monsters. Byleistr, whatever else he was, was not a monster. He probably believed he had good reasons, solid justifications, for his threats to the Aesir and the Vanir. He was not a monster.

Loki told himself this, as he assumed the subservient posture that went with the role he played. He even knew it to be the truth. The problem was, he was utterly unable to convince himself.

"What are you doing in here?" demanded the Jotun king, his guttural voice sending a tingle of alarm down Loki's nerve-endings.

"I beg your pardon, my lord, I was ensuring that all was-- " Loki began, trying to maintain a suitably submissive posture while yet also remaining oriented to the king's position with relation to himself--

Byleistr, it transpired, was far quicker than a being of his size had any right to be: he made a sudden move forward and seized Loki by the left forearm, yanking him forward and then twisting the arm upwards and sideways.

Loki was not, compared to his brother or the friends of his brother, a particularly formidable warrior. He had, nevertheless, been trained extensively in combat, had considerable practical experience, and even by the standards of the rest of Asgard was a fighter to be reckoned with. The instinctive reaction ingrained by training and experience was, when someone lays violent hands upon you, you fight. You do not think about it, you react, and fight, and then either escape from your foe or dispatch him.

Instinct was one thing, but Loki's brain also reacted extremely fast in the crisis, and at this moment sent a reminder to his muscles and nerves: _You are a servant!_ A servant does not fight a king, does not even consider it. Loki's fight reflex turned into a flinch of mostly-simulated terror, and stopped there.

In the same instant, another part of his brain was scrambling, trying to invent an explanation of the transformation that would be flooding his skin even now, giving him away--

All thought and reaction was suddenly short-circuited by a wave of pain up his arm.

Loki had very little memory of his transformations into his other form, into the Jotun shape that had made himself the object of his own terror and hatred to the point that it did not seem possible anyone else who beheld him could ever feel any differently. The first transformation had shocked him to the point that everything between then and his fall to Bristol was slightly blurred, as if his mind was trying to protect him from the knowledge of what he was and what he had done.

He did, however, remember quite distinctly that it had not _hurt._

Loki glanced down and saw the Jotun king's hand wrapped around his forearm. Saw his own blackened flesh visible on either side of the Jotun's fingers, while his own drooped feebly, as if the injuries to the arm were already deep enough to impact voluntary processes. The helpless hand and fingers, the whole of his visible flesh aside from the injured area, retained the pale smoothness he had until recently believed was his nature.

It was as well that his current guise called for a little artistic show of distress, which permitted him to _use_ the shock he was feeling. He did not bother trying to suppress the tears of pain that rose in his eyes-- this was a purely physical reaction, but it enhanced the effect he needed to create. His clever tongue also hurried to save the situation: he was vaguely aware of crying out in pain, of the pleadings and apologies of the character he had created, like an actor delivering lines he knew so well he scarcely needed to think of them, except that he was making it all up on the spot.

At the same time, a part of his mind was trying to figure out what this meant, ensuring he did not move in a way that caused the purloined document to rustle beneath his shirt, worrying about whether Annie (and Coulson) had gotten safely away.

And then he was being thrust violently toward the door of the chamber, Byleistr's voice in his ears commanding him to get out of his sight, and Loki was stumbling away with his wounded arm clutched to his belly, shoulders hunched in a show of fear and pain and shock, as he tugged down what was left of his sleeve in an effort at concealment of the injury.

He was a little disgusted with himself, to be displaying such weakness, feigned as it was.

He was considerably more disgusted with the creature back in the chambers, to have visited such hurt upon what he seemed to believe was a harmless, powerless member of the Vanir household. It crossed his mind that he might be mistaken in his hard-won belief that the Jotun were not monsters.

And then the vigilant part of his brain spoke up and explained everything.

Loki glanced around, saw no one watching him, and left the hall at a dead run.

~oOo~

Annie and Coulson were hiding in the forest outside the palace gates when Loki emerged. It was dark, and Loki was now walking as though unconcerned, but Annie still recognized from his posture that something was wrong.

"It is not terribly serious," Loki said dismissively, and then nearly screamed when Annie took hold of his hand and tried to make him show her. Reluctantly, he pushed up his sleeve and displayed the injury. Even by the light of the half-full moon it was an ugly thing.

"You need a doctor," Annie announced. It was interesting, really, how her voice could shake at the same time it held steel.

"I need to get back to Asgard," Loki told her. "We need to… I must speak to the Allfather."

"And the healers," Annie insisted.

"Yes, of course," Loki agreed, and in fact he knew she was right: touching the injury was enough to make him feel giddy, so supporting the arm was practically out of the question; but at the same time letting the wounded limb flap about, his left hand a dead thing, was even worse.

The part of his brain that kept functioning-- which he was quite aware was probably the part of his brain that had kept him pushing on in his madness, making everything worse, but it was all he had-- presented a solution.

"Coulson and I will call to Heimdall, and return to Asgard now," Loki decided. "You will transport yourself back to the others and explain that I have returned there, so they may come back as well."

"We should all go back together," Annie objected, and then read the truth in his face: he wasn't going to be able to walk all the way back to the campsite without fainting. "Okay, never mind. You two go. Are you… are you sure you'll be all right?" Loki remembered that when they left Scotland, he had been quite open about his fear of defying the Allfather again. And it was not like there was much he could hide from Annie, anyway.

"Positive," Loki replied. "This is important. He will see that."

Annie looked at Loki, looked at Coulson, said, "Take care of him, all right?" kissed Loki on the cheek and was gone.

Loki took a deep breath. "Heimdall? If you can hear me, please open the Bifrost. I think-- I have learned something that should be known to the king. Please, Heimdall."

For just a moment, nothing happened, and Loki felt a surge of desperation at the idea of having to walk all the way back to the campsite, explain things to Sif and the others, and then go over it all again after she persuaded Heimdall to bring them to Asgard.

And then the sky filled with light as the Bifrost opened. The pain in his injured arm blazed briefly into agony, and then he was in Heimdall's observatory, not quite steady on his feet, Coulson supporting him on his uninjured side, sturdy and calm and giving off an aura of sensible black suit and tie despite his Asgardian servant's garb.

"The guards will escort you," Heimdall said impassively.

"Thank you, Heimdall," Loki replied, and rarely had he meant those words more.

The Allfather was in conference with Tyr, one of his chief generals, when Loki was brought into the throne room. To be in conference with Tyr at this hour was bad, but if Thor had not yet been recalled from Midgard, to say nothing of Sif and the Warriors Three being spared to babysit Loki and his friends, then the situation was not yet past hope.

Odin was not pleased, to be interrupted at such a time. Loki felt apprehension wash over him, at Odin's annoyed expression when the doors opened, and at Tyr's quickly suppressed look of open hostility. One of the books Loki had from the school library discussed the idea of "kindred spirits," and that was what Tyr and Loki decidedly were _not_. The old soldier was so earnest about training the youngsters in combat, the urge to tease him had been irresistible. Loki had persistently resorted to forbidden magic in their lessons, removing himself from the vicinity of a blow instead of properly blocking or dodging it, transforming staffs into snakes or causing a mace-- really, such a horrible weapon anyway, he had always been a little leery of Hogun just for his preference-- to turn into a handful of flowers. Later, when he was both old enough and young enough to find such things amusing, he would cause the blade of Tyr's sword to droop in a suggestively rude manner (and that was one of his very few pranks that genuinely made Thor and Fandral, at least, laugh.) It was no wonder, really the old soldier had little affection for Loki.

What Tyr had not known, at least Loki didn't think he did at the time, was that Loki, who liked to tease but was not entirely without sense, had then persuaded some of the guards to help him practice on the sly what Tyr had imparted in their lessons. Teasing the teacher was entertaining, but getting killed in battle as a result would be far less so. The common soldiers had no opinion one way or the other about the younger prince, and so it was not embarrassing for Loki to be knocked down by them when he was trying to learn a technique, not like being catcalled at by Thor and his friends would have been. He supposed word of these sessions had probably gotten back to Tyr at some point, but knowing his pupil was not quite as feckless as he pretended still did little to endear Loki to him.

It occurred to Loki, remembering the soldiers, that he of all people should have taken more care about the guards in the weapons vault, the day he brought in the Frost Giants.

And then it occurred to him that if his mind was wandering like this he was probably getting ready to faint after all, and for that reason as much as in reverence he lowered himself to one knee before he fell on his face.

And then Odin was speaking, and perhaps Loki had been wrong about his expression, because he sounded more concerned than angry as he rose to his feet and asked,

"What are you doing here?"

Loki looked up, focused, and heard himself say, "I'm sorry for bursting in like this, Father, but-- "

He abruptly stopped speaking, wishing he had remembered to call Odin by his rank. He had gratefully accepted his parents' tacit permission to call them Father and Mother again, implied in his first return to Asgard by the way they persistently referred to him as their son, but he felt rather shy of claiming the relationship in front of the guards or someone like Tyr, whose opinion of Loki's treachery was probably at variance from the lenience shown by his family.

Coulson saved the situation. Still on his feet beside Loki, he said calmly,

"Loki's learned something about the Jotun situation that he thought you should know."

"And what is that?" demanded Odin, who by now was halfway down the steps from the throne.

Coulson shrugged. "He didn't tell me."

"Can you stand? What is the matter?" Odin was asking now, and Loki realized his father was addressing him.

"I'm fine," Loki assured him, collecting his wits. Sitting would have been preferable to kneeling, but both were much better than being in motion.

"What did you need to tell me?" Odin asked.

"My king, we should-- " Tyr began. Odin made a harsh noise of dismissal and gestured sharply. Loki flinched and then realized, this time, the noise was not directed at him. Tyr fell silent but seemed not to be bothered, and for the first time in his life Loki realized that noise was not solely used to convey disapproval and dismissal toward second sons.

"Tell me," Odin said now, and Loki tried to emulate Thor and explain as concisely as possible what he had done.

"The Jotun king is paying a visit to Vanaheim, and I felt, I thought it would be well, if we could learn what was behind his new aggression," Loki began. His father looked at him thoughtfully, did not ask where he had gotten this information. "Agent Coulson, Annie and I posed as servants in the hall where the delegation was to stay. I was… unfortunately, I was caught by the king in his chambers, but he seemed to believe I was a servant and let me go. However, he first seized me by the arm." Loki pushed back the damaged sleeve of his tunic, to reveal his even-more-damaged arm.

Odin uttered a hiss and immediately barked an order to one of the guards to fetch Eir. Looking down at his own arm as though it belonged to another, Loki could not blame his father for his reaction: the dead-looking flesh seemed ready to detach from the bone, and clear fluid was oozing out of the blackened area down to his wrist. It looked disgusting, far worse than the frostbite Volstagg had gotten in the battle on Jotunheim just before all the trouble started. Of course, Loki's arm had been in Byleistr's clutch for quite a long time.

Odin did not seem to understand what Loki was telling him.

"Father," he began, trying to spell it out, "given that I am Jotun myself, contact with a Jotun should not have harmed me, is that not right?"

Odin's single eye left Loki's gruesome injury and instead went to Loki's face. There was an inexplicable tenderness in his voice as he said, "My son, I assure you, you are Jotun."

Loki blinked at Odin and then realized his father had completely missed the point. "Of course I am Jotun. We know that," he said, pain and exhaustion making him impatient. "And that being the case, Father, that means one of two things: either Byleistr is not Jotun-- "

"His mother and father are known," Tyr said firmly. "His father was a celebrated general, his mother related to Laufey's queen. He is definitely Jotun."

Loki nodded. "In that case, the only solution left is that Byleistr is not Byleistr."

The whole thing seemed so perfectly clear to Loki that it was a bit frustrating to have to wait for the other three to catch up with him. However, once Eir had arrived, fussing like old times, and tended to Loki's injured arm, Odin seemed to recover his ability to think. The king took Tyr, Loki and Coulson into an inner room where they could sit and Loki could advance his theories:

"He knew his touch should do injury to the being he thought I was, and ensured it did so. That suggests whatever he is, it is a shapeshifting being with magical powers."

"But why pose as Byleistr?" Tyr demanded. "Why cause such trouble for the Jotun? To what purpose?"

"Perhaps as a blind for something else," Loki suggested. "The Jotun have no allies. They are… entirely alone. If they launch an aggressive war against Asgard and Vanaheim, who will come to their aid? No one."

"Yes, but what is the _point-- ?"_ Tyr interrupted, and Odin made the noise again. It did not seem to trouble Tyr unduly, but Loki was still glad it was not aimed at him. He went on,

"As I say, perhaps it is a blind. The king appeared to be isolated from the rest of the deputation, which may be so that no one realizes their king is not merely behaving differently, their king really is different-- that he has been replaced by some other creature. I found documents in his rooms, which I did not dare disturb very much for fear of being caught, but-- " Loki reached awkwardly into his shirt and drew out the folded paper. "That is of Midgardian make, as was the case in which I found it. Perhaps the markings on the paper will mean something to Agent Coulson or one of the Avengers-- "

"Oh, yeah," Coulson said inelegantly, gazing at the octopus-like image on the paper. "It does."

"If Midgard was to be attacked by a force from another realm, as it was once before, what would Asgard and Vanaheim do?" Loki asked.

"We would go to their aid," Odin said slowly. "Unless, of course, we were ourselves fighting for our lives against an enemy like the Jotun."

"We would crush them," Tyr snarled.

"Yes," Loki said, in a small voice. Tyr had the grace to look embarrassed.

"Yes," agreed Odin, "but not without a fight, at the cost of many lives. And in the meantime, while the Jotun were being sacrificed by their false king, his true allies, whatever manner of creature they might be, could carry out their real plans, whether that be an invasion of Midgard or something else. Loki, son, I believe you have hit upon something."

Loki tried not to look embarrassed at the pride in his father's voice. "It is only a guess, but it might… I wonder if I might ask a favour? I would like to visit the library, and find out more about the shapeshifting beings who live beyond the Nine Realms. May I?"

"Of course," Odin said. "I think that may be a task for more than one person, so we will find assistants for you. Tyr?"

"I'll go rouse the librarian and his assistants," Tyr said, rising and bowing to the king. He paused, looking down at Loki, and then laughed. "I should have realized I was wasting my time, trying to make a common soldier out of you."

That… did not sound like disapproval.

"Before you go," Coulson spoke up, "there's something else you should know about. This paper Loki found? It has the seal of an organization that's caused a lot of trouble on Midgard-- Earth."

"Indeed?" said Odin.

"Indeed," said Coulson. "Whoever your shapeshifter is, he seems to be allied with a group known as Hydra."


	13. Chapter 13

Despite what Thor and his friends used to claim, Loki had not, in fact, spent his entire youth in the library. Proof of this, as he pointed out to Volstagg and Fandral when they brought it up, was that if he _had,_ he and his brother's friends would scarcely have had the opportunity to learn mutual hatred, since they would never, ever have set eyes upon one another.

(This remark was unwarranted, but he was tired and his arm hurt and, as he had admitted to Thor, he had always brought at least part of his own troubles upon himself anyway. Fortunately, Volstagg and Fandral had finally outgrown the instinct to repay sharp words with a thumping. Or, and this was also likely, perhaps in his current condition Loki already looked sufficiently thumped.)

So. Not his _entire_ youth, but admittedly enough of it to be extremely familiar with the organizational principles behind the collection. Enough that the tousled librarian, roused from sleep in the middle of the night, merely looked at Loki as though he had expected something like this to happen sooner or later, yawned, and calmly set about learning the nature of the banished prince's current information need.

Thinking of the school librarian back in Bristol, Loki was reassured to realize the species was much the same across all realms.

The librarian also patiently attempted to explain the collection's indexing system to the rest of the party, who had returned to Asgard as fast as Heimdall could bring them and in fact were waiting outside the chamber when Odin, Coulson and Loki finally emerged from their conference. The librarian did his best, but his explanations served only to bewilder even Sif, let alone the Warriors Three.

George, by contrast, grasped the principles almost immediately. He then delivered a concise and beautifully clear explanation to everyone else, with the result the library assistants were soon able to return to bed, while only professional interest kept the yawning librarian himself attached to the task of trying to determine what manner of shapeshifting creatures existed who might be impersonating the Jotun king.

Volstagg and Fandral confessed themselves still confused, but since Loki still had only one fully-functioning arm and both George and Annie had trouble reaching the higher shelves, those two settled down to fetching and carrying heavy books for the others.

Loki, his wrapped-up left arm still painful and beginning to itch, but nothing like as sore as it was an hour ago, found himself looking around at the scene of scholarly activity and wondering whether he was having a feverish dream.

"I feel as if I am at Hogwarts," he whispered to George, who was sitting across from him, short hair sticking out all over his head from scrubbing his hands through it as he read. George looked at him questioningly over the top of his spectacles. Loki persisted, "I feel as if I am at Hogwarts, and have wandered into the library at exactly the same moment all the Gryffindors have chosen to use it."

George sighed, decided to humour him, and played along: "Well, it's not like Ravenclaws aren't allowed to use the library."

" _You_ would be in Ravenclaw," Loki pointed out. "I feel sure the Sorting Hat would assign _me_ to Slytherin." Mournfully, he added, and not for the first time, "I do not wish to be in Slytherin."

"Well, then, tell the Hat so," George suggested-- also not for the first time. "Besides, you've got Ravenclaw written all over you. Or Gryffindor, even."

Loki was deeply offended. "I most certainly do not belong in Griffyndor," he hissed.

"Knock it off, you two, some of us Hufflepuffs are trying to concentrate," Annie muttered, from Loki's right. She looked up, turned a patient gaze on both of them, and went on, "Loki, you're tired, and you're rambling. What are you going on about?"

Strangely, despite his legendary oversensitivity, Loki had never minded being chided by his housemates: they never seemed to _mean_ it the way the Aesir always had. And even as he spoke, he was aware he was making very little sense. With that in mind, he simply explained, "I… I have just never been in the library with this many people before, all working on the same project. It feels strange."

All working on the same project _as him_ , he meant. _Together_. Admittedly, he had tended to make a point of visiting the library when he was quite sure there would be no one else around, which meant it was his probably own fault he had never had this experience before, but still. It was strange. But nice.

Agent Coulson, who sat across across from Annie, looked up. (Loki thought Coulson was probably a Griffyndor as well-- although he might also be the black sheep of Slytherin, clever and tricky but not at all evil. Agent Coulson would be able to resist evil, even where it was all around him. Loki knew the safest thing for himself was to take refuge in a house where malevolence was never even contemplated. Perhaps he should throw himself upon the mercy of the Hat, and beg to be put into Hufflepuff.)

Coulson studied Loki and said matter-of-factly,

"You need to get some sleep. Getting hurt like that will take a lot out of you, and you've been running on guts for God-knows-how-long as it is."

Before Loki could reply, Mitchell (Gryffindor, without a doubt, but Loki could not bring himself to hold that against him) sat up straight. "Guys, I think I've found something. Have any of you ever heard of a Skrull?"

Coulson leaned forward. "Tell us."

Mitchell, scanning the page before him, summarized as fast as he could: "They're a race of technologically advanced shapeshifters-- "

"Do they possess magic?" Loki asked, as Mitchell paused to read some more. "The being I encountered was almost certainly using magic."

Mitchell kept reading. "No, I don't think they do… But there's a related race, the Dire Wraiths, from the Dark Nebula."

"I have read of Dire Wraiths. They practice magic, do they not?" Loki asked. Mitchell flipped a few pages, read a little, and nodded.

"Yes, they do. And they're shapeshifters as well," Mitchell reported. He studied the page before him and made a face. "They also seem to have a really unusual tongue."

"That is the only thing I recall about them, their ability to drill into one's head, and suck out one's brains, with their tongue," Loki said. "It made such an impression upon me that I had rather forgotten the shapeshifting aspect. Is there an illustration?" Mitchell nodded and started to push the book toward Loki, who extended his right hand to receive it.

The book slid obediently out of Mitchell's grasp and across the table, turning smoothly as it did so, and ended up in front of Loki, nudging impatiently at the tome already before him to move it out of the way.

There was a startled little silence as Loki gazed at the book, then his right hand, and then back at the book. And then Annie was hugging him from his uninjured side and both George and Mitchell were patting his head and back where they knew they could do him no harm. Loki found himself holding his right hand against his chest as if to cradle the recovering magic to his heart, and if it had not been for the presence of Sif and the Warriors he suspected he might have been weeping a little in relief. Despite the lessened hostility he felt between them, he still had no desire to display his weakness to them quite so blatantly.

Sif (also Gryffindor, as well as Head Girl, no doubt about it) helped considerably by smiling at him and saying simply,

"That is a welcome return indeed. Now, have we yet found any other beings who might fit the bill as our false Byleistr?"

One by one, the others shook their heads.

"The changeling might still be a single sorcerer whose powers merely lie that way, however," Loki pointed out. "The Jotun are not known as a race of shapeshifters, and yet here I am." He pretended not to notice the way Fandral and Volstagg flinched, as though Loki had spoken of something indelicate. Loki waited a heartbeat for annoyance at them, but found nothing. He could hardly rebuke them for not wanting to face the fact their friend's brother was a Frost Giant, not when Loki's own reaction to the news had begun with hysteria and ended with mass murder and attempted suicide.

"You're right, of course," Coulson said thoughtfully, "but I've been thinking about that. Loki, just before Thor brought us here, you had a nasty run-in with Dr. Strange, didn't you?"

"I did," Loki agreed. He noticed that he did not feel anxious or suspicious about the line of inquiry: despite his physical injury, and the weariness that still plagued him, he felt much more himself than he had since... well, since that morning he had spent tending the flower beds at the school and fretting about Norse horror stories. In his current condition, unlike the state he was in when he threw that knife at poor Tony Stark, he was able to remember that he trusted Agent Coulson.

"Well," said Coulson, "I didn't mention this to you at the time, but that story bothered me a lot. It just didn't sound like something Strange would do."

Loki was conscious of all eyes upon him, waiting to see how he would explain his lie.

No. He was conscious of the eyes of the Warriors Three upon him, waiting for the explanation. Sif's gaze on him was merely concerned. And Annie, George, and Mitchell were looking at Coulson, waiting for him to offer a rationale for questioning Loki's honesty. Despite the fact that the only reason needed for questioning Loki's honesty was _because he was Loki_ , it was good to feel their support.

And, rather to his own surprise, he still trusted Agent Coulson.

"I do not know what you mean," Loki said finally, and waited for the agent to explain.

"I mean that it's not like him," Coulson replied, "and it worried me. You were kidding about Harry Potter a minute ago-- well, Strange's joke was that he was like Professor Snape: not a _nice_ guy, but not a bad guy. That approach he made to you just didn't sound like him." Coulson looked at Loki's startled expression and asked, "What is it?"

"He compared himself to Professor Snape?" Loki repeated. Coulson nodded. "And he appeared to be familiar with the stories?"

"Movies, I think," Coulson admitted. "He's mentioned them to me once or twice. Why, is there a rule that you magic guys have to have read the books?"

"I am fond of the movies, myself," Loki replied. "I find them endearing. But what interests me is that when Strange made his overture to me, he promised we could do great things. My reply was, 'Terrible, but great.'"

"Wait, didn't someone say that to Harry?" Annie asked. "About the things You-Know-Who had done?"

"The wand maker," George provided the reference. "When he told Harry that his wand and Voldemort's were brothers." George, in his innocence, did not even wince as he spoke of the good brother and the evil one. Loki glanced at Annie and Mitchell and found their expressions mirrored George's: they were obviously thinking about the iniquities of Voldemort, not Loki.

"I know that anyone might forget or miss a reference, but added to the fact that you say Strange not was behaving like himself in the first place-- " Loki began, and Coulson nodded.

"Yeah," said the agent. "It makes me wonder whether there was a reason Strange wasn't acting like himself, and maybe it was because Strange really _wasn't_ himself."

Everyone looked at each other, including the librarian, who was obviously trying to catch up and having very little luck.

"This," Loki said slowly, "might have implications that Thor and the others should know of immediately. If SHIELD itself has been infiltrated by shapeshifters working in cooperation with this Hydra…"

"It could explain an awful lot about how the organization is behaving right now," Coulson completed the thought. There was something lurking behind his normal impassive expression, and Loki suddenly realized it was relief. Guiltily, Loki acknowledged that he had selfishly not given much thought to Coulson's feelings about the behaviour of the organization he had served so faithfully, but the agent had to be feeling tremendous betrayal.

"Okay, hang on a minute," George spoke up, pushing his spectacles up his nose and obviously trying to inject a note of caution into the proceedings. "After what happened to Loki's arm, I think we're pretty safe in believing the Jotun king is an imposter, but we're really jumping to conclusions here about Strange, let alone any other infiltrators of SHIELD. There's a principle doctors use, when they're diagnosing a patient: If you hear hoofbeats, don't look for zebras."

There was a pause, while everyone in the group tried to figure out what George had just said. Except for Mitchell and Annie, who were muffling giggles with their hands.

"I am sorry, George," Loki said, "but I really do not understand. Surely if there were zebras in the vicinity, one would expect to hear hoofbeats?"

"It means, don't assume someone has a rare disease until after you eliminate the possibility of a common one," George explained patiently. "If you hear hoofbeats, it's way likelier to be a horse than a zebra."

"Unless one is on the plains of Africa," Loki argued. "Indeed, the context of the situation would change everything: should one hear _eight_ hoofbeats, for instance-- on Midgard, one would he justified in assuming there were _two_ horses, whereas on Asgard, it might very well just be Sleipnir."

"I think he's got you there, George," Mitchell snickered.

"I just mean that the simplest explanation is: Strange simply didn't notice you were quoting Harry Potter," George said.

"And the reason he did not notice is, he was fully absorbed in the contemplation of nefarious deeds, the like of which he has never been known to consider?" Loki countered.

George opened his mouth, and then closed it. "Actually… okay, maybe this is a zebra after all."

"It is at least worth checking for stripes," Loki agreed.

"Later," said Sif, "you can tell us all what a zebra is."

"It is perhaps easier to show you," Loki replied, and conjured one in the middle of the library, just for the joy of being able to do so. It was as if a spring that had been blocked by mud and rocks was now cleared, and the magic was flowing freely once more. He felt no ill-effects at all and, in celebration, sent the zebra away and replaced it with a rhinoceros. The big animal looked around with puzzled eyes, ascertained that her calf was close by her side, gazed at the other occupants of the room with a remarkably thoughtful expression, considering she was a rhinoceros, and then vanished in a puff of soft green before she could become alarmed or agitated. Loki sighed happily. "I have _missed_ being able to do that."

"I think we all have," Mitchell said, in a tone of voice that indicated he was not being as sarcastic as he sounded. Loki smiled at him and turned back to Coulson.

"I believe it is time for us to make our way back to Midgard."

~oOo~

Despite many disagreeable memories of his dealings with the friends of his brother, justice compelled Loki to admit that it was many years indeed since he had been involved in a physical altercation with any of them.

He made this mental note only because, for a moment, there seemed to be a real danger that Sif and the Warriors might actually knock him down and sit upon him, if that was what it took to keep him from returning to Midgard in his current condition. They couched it in terms of concern for his health, but Loki knew they were, in reality, worried that Thor would not be at all happy if they permitted him to leave his sanctuary so soon.

Knowing how righteously angry his brother could become, Loki actually had some sympathy for that point of view. He did, however, feel compelled to point out that Thor would not be any happier if he found himself facing some shapeshifting monster unawares.

The discussion became heated indeed, with his own friends actually chipping in on the side of Thor's, on the theory that Loki would be better off spending a day or two allowing his arm to heal completely before he put himself in harm's way again. Even after he belatedly remembered that he had his magic back and healed his injury himself, the others still seemed to believe he was in need of recovery time.

"You look like you should probably go to bed and sleep for a week," Mitchell argued. Loki scowled at this treachery, mostly because that was the best way to avoid admitting he was deeply touched by the concern.

" _I_ can explain things to the Avengers," Coulson pointed out, in a tone of calm reason.

"Indeed," Loki countered, doing his best not to give away how exhausted he felt, which perhaps made him a little more waspish than was strictly necessary. "And how are you at identifying magical creatures in disguise?" That stopped everyone in their tracks. Loki, never one to let an advantage pass, pressed on, "Without magic, I was of no use to the Avengers anyway, but now I can help them. My powers will be weaker on Midgard than they are here, but at least I will be able to, as it were, sniff out other magic users on their behalf. If we are correct about these Dire Wraiths, or some other shapeshifting species, the Avengers will need me to help them avoid ambush. I cannot stay here and simply hope nothing bad will happen before I get around to returning."

Loki felt his argument made a great deal of sense, and was considerably irritated when it was interrupted by the arrival of a sheepish guard, bearing a healing potion from Eir with the adjuration that Loki consume it immediately so that he, the guard, might report back to the healer. Loki very nearly lost his temper entirely at this, only managing with difficulty to remind himself that, first of all, none of this was the fault of the guard, and also that if he turned someone into a frog-- or even a fuzzy green frog puppet (and he had _no_ idea where that notion had come from)-- he would lose any moral high ground he currently occupied.

Aside from everything else, Loki was painfully familiar with Eir's healing potion, which was sickly-sweet and slimy and, really, a very strong argument in favour of letting nature take its course.

Loki attempted to point out to the guard that his arm was fine now, healed by a combination of Eir's and his own magic, see, perfectly all right. The guard was unmoved: apparently, given a choice between facing the wrath of a perfidious, murderous, insane banished sorcerer and that of the healer, he felt safer taking his chances defying Loki. And as fond as Loki was of Eir, he had to concede the man had a point.

Finally accepting his defeat with the best grace he could muster, Loki held his breath and downed the potion, under the watchful but now-sympathetic eyes of Sif and the Warriors-- Loki had spent more time in the healing rooms as a child than all four of the others put together, but since adulthood the tally had become much more nearly equal, and Thor's friends were as unhappily acquainted with the concoction as he was.

Handing back the vial and wiping his mouth, Loki glared the guard out of the room and then turned on the others.

"I am really not in the mood for further argument," he announced, hoping any lingering nausea might be mistaken for a glitter of resolve. "And if anyone is thinking they might have a word with Heimdall, and persuade him to reject my request to use the Bifrost, you should know that I remember certain paths between the realms and have no objection to travelling alone if need be."

As he had hoped, Coulson and his housemates did not look happy at the idea of being left behind in Asgard.

Sif spoke up, reluctantly:

"At least let the rest of us accompany you." It was not so much that she thought Thor would be less angry if they at least accompanied Loki, more that she preferred to deal with his annoyance head-on. Griffyndor to the last, Loki reflected.

"I am not sure there is anything productive you can do yet," he pointed out. "And you know that if Thor needs your help, he will surely ask for it."

Even more reluctantly, Sif nodded. Loki breathed a sigh of relief, made what notes he needed to on the subject of Dire Wraiths, thanked the librarian for his assistance, and prepared to start for the Bifrost. He was sorry to sneak away without saying goodbye to his parents, but on consideration he suspected that would just lead to another argument about whether he was really well enough to leave yet, and there was no point in it. He _knew_ he was not entirely recovered, either from his captivity or from the recent physical insult. That being immaterial, there was no purpose in arguing about it.

He smiled at his friends.

"Coming?" he asked.

~oOo~

Tony had to admit it, he was a little surprised, when Thor came knocking on the door of the Caribbean house, to see him back so soon. He didn't bother asking how Thor had found their latest hideout, because the less he thought about golden guardians who see you when you're sleeping and know when you're awake, the better. But he seconded the sentiment when Steve asked whether Thor was comfortable leaving Loki already.

"He is in the company of my most trusted companions," Thor explained, but he didn't look very happy about it.

"That's a good thing, isn't it?" Steve spoke up, a little hesitantly.

Thor sighed, as he walked into the kitchen and sat carefully at the counter. Tony wondered whether hanging out in the kitchen made him feel closer to his brother. "Yes, of course it is. I am simply… I am still worried. I would prefer to remain nearby, until he is more himself."

"So he's still-- ?" Steve didn't seem to know how to finish that sentence. Tony could think of several possibilities: _Still freaked out? Still afraid of everything? Still chucking knives at anyone who upsets him?_ No wonder Steve just let it trail off.

"He is much improved," Thor replied briefly, then glanced at Tony and Steve and appeared to come to a decision. "You deserve more honesty, for you are also his friends."

Tony didn't argue: at some point between that day months ago when he'd abducted Loki off a school playground and-- as Mitchell put it-- "clapped him in irons" and now, he'd developed a genuine affection for Thor's touchy, smartass little brother. Yeah, okay, there was probably some fellow-feeling in there as well. Whatever.

"Sure we are," agreed Steve, who, after their original adventure together, had genuine reason to be grateful to Loki.

"I have been paying very little attention of late to the political situation of Asgard," Thor began, and Tony experienced a little start of surprise before he chided himself: of course Asgard had a political context. It was a real place, as unreal as it felt to him. He nodded encouragingly and began to set up the coffee maker. This was beginning to feel like a conversation that would require coffee.

Thor looked hopefully at the coffee maker as though willing it to brew faster, and went on,

"While I was occupied searching the Nine Realms for Loki, our father did not concern me with other issues troubling the realm. However, it transpires there is some sort of new problem with our long-vanquished old enemy, Jotunheim."

"Okay, and is that where-- ?" Steve asked carefully.

"Where Loki was born, yes," Thor agreed.

"And that's the realm he tried to destroy?" Steve persisted. Thor nodded. Steve, clearly groping for understanding, asked, "Are you afraid he'll do something like that again, if Asgard is threatened?"

"Oh, no," Thor replied quickly. "No. He feels... deep remorse for what he did to that realm. Everything else can be forgiven, and has been, but Jotunheim is still a terrible wound in his heart."

"I've gotta tell you," Tony heard himself saying, "I don't think I could be quite as understanding as you are, if my brother had _tried to kill me."_ Tony was quite aware, having heard it from Loki's own mouth, that Loki had not merely _tried_ to kill Thor, but had _succeeded_ , but that was a step too far for even his brain to handle. Part of the reason he was able to like Loki now was, his mind apparently refused to connect the playful smartass he knew with the guy who did that.

Thor accepted the mug of coffee Steve offered him, took a gulp of the scalding black brew, and shrugged. "I have told you he was goaded. A night or two ago, my brother and our childhood companions and I had a pleasant evening of reminiscences, and it turns out the goading began many years earlier than even I had credited.

"And the other thing honesty compels me to admit is this: the night we watched the television program of the Muppets, when Loki was still so ill and clearly asking for reassurance... I lied to him."

"Lied how?" Tony asked cautiously.

"I told him I loved him and would never dream of trying to kill him. And I suppose I really did speak the truth, since he was referring to my reaction to learning of his Jotun origins. By the time I was told of that, the crash had already happened, and I had seen the wreck my brother had become. It was not in me to hate him for a thing so beyond his control. And I believe, I truly believe, that had our parents told us the truth at an earlier time, I would have been able to remember he was still my brother, and perhaps remembered too that I love him.

"But. I also know my own temper, and I know how ungovernable it could be in the time before my banishment, where I learned so many lessons. And I know, I am perfectly certain that, had Loki confessed to me it was his doing, that my coronation was ruined... I know I would have killed him." Thor glanced at Tony and Steve and clarified: "I do not say it in your playful Midgardians sense, when you say you 'would like to kill' someone who irritates you. I mean I would have become _uncontrollably_ angry, as our comrade Bruce does when the world is too much for him. My temper can still be violent, but you have no idea how much worse it was before I learned any humility at all. I am perfectly certain that if he had made such a confession to me, even in a spirit of true remorse, and Mjolnir had been near to hand... I would now be the one filled with regret for murdering my brother, and unable to stop reminding myself and others of my crime."

Thor refilled his coffee and added, "Indeed, even when I returned to Asgard from my banishment, I was intent on teaching my brother a sharp lesson. I had by that point learned enough that, when he challenged me on the Bifrost and I saw how mad and heartbroken he was, I could not bring myself to really harm him. If, however, he had appeared sane-- I probably would have fulfilled what I now believe to have been his wish, and at the very least done him a serious injury."

"So you're saying, _there but for the grace of God--_ ?" Steve prompted.

"He happened to be placed in a situation in which he was capable of such an action. I happened not to be. But I know perfectly well that our positions could very easily have been reversed, that it was not any purity of heart or goodness that separated my circumstances from his. Indeed, it was my ungovernable temper that led me to murder all those innocent Jotun, when I traveled to their realm and provoked them so that I might fight and kill them." Thor looked at Steve's concerned face, and smiled lopsidedly. "This is difficult for you to understand, Steve, because there are things you would truly never dream of doing. There are weaknesses you simply do not have. But that weakness of my brother's, that drove him to do something terrible and have to live with the regret? I know I share it. And so there is little point in praising me for my 'understanding,' when what I actually understand is the flaw itself."

"Gotcha," Tony murmured, wondering whether it was too early to put a little nip of something in the coffee.

"To return to my original point," Thor went on calmly, "it appears there is new trouble between Asgard and Jotunheim. I do not know the details. What concerns me is, Loki is bent upon making amends for all his crimes, and I fear he may take it upon himself to try and solve this new problem, as much to assist the Jotun as for Asgard. And I am very much afraid he will do something reckless that brings harm upon him."

"Yeah," Tony said. _Reckless_ was certainly a fair description of Loki on his best day. Tony could only imagine what he would be like in the grip of an obsessive idea.

"Okay, but you said you left him with your best friends," Steve pointed out. "They won't let him do anything really crazy, will they?" He winced, obviously regretting his choice of words.

"They will do their best to prevent it," Thor agreed, "which will be at least a little easier now, since as far as I know his magic is still disabled. And even at that, surely he is still safer there than he would be here."

"Agreed," Tony said. "And speaking of that, Steve and I had better bring you up to date on what we've been up to. A friend of mine is trying to arrange a meeting with someone who might be able to enlighten us about the situation with SHIELD."

"Tell me," Thor urged, just as there was a sharp knock on the door.

"Pepper, don't answer that!" Tony called out in alarm, hearing her in the other room and abruptly remembering there might be anyone at the door, up to and including shock troops from SHIELD.

Steve and Thor followed Tony to the door, as Pepper fell back to let them handle their "visitor," whoever it was. At a second knock, Tony threw the door open.

"Hello!" Loki said cheerfully, then looked past Tony to the other three, and smiled rather triumphantly at their expressions of surprise. "How nice to see you all again!"


	14. Chapter 14

Tony was kind of glad Thor had told them his temper had improved since his banishment to Earth, because otherwise Tony would have thought he was really damn angry. In fact, this was just about as mad as Tony ever wanted to see him. Or anyone, for that matter. He didn't dare retreat to a safe distance for fear things really did get out of hand, but he found himself wishing he could take a minute to suit up-- partly in case he had to get between the brothers, and partly because the suit allowed him to adjust the volume at which he heard the outside world. No matter how many times he heard Thor yell at someone, he was never quite prepared for how loud he was.

Interestingly, though, Loki didn't seem at all troubled by his big brother's wrath: he wasn't one bit conciliatory, and in fact he yelled right back at Thor, with less volume but no lack of enthusiasm. Thor had spoken of "goading" Loki, but it appeared to Tony that Loki was not above some goading of his own in return. The younger brother did not quite resort to announcing that Thor was not the boss of him, but he came as close to the classic declaration as an Asgardian probably could.

It took Tony a moment to realize there was something else going on, to pick up on the sense of... elation... coming from Loki.

And that was when he figured it out: Loki wasn't just trying to get a rise out of Thor. He wasn't seriously arguing with him. He also wasn't pushing to see how far he could go before Thor snapped, or anything suicidal like that. As far as Tony could tell, Loki was just reveling in the fact that he wasn't _afraid_ of Thor, that he _knew_ it was perfectly safe to argue with him, no matter how heated the dispute became.

After Thor's confession only a few minutes ago, Tony had to admit he wasn't anything like as confident as Loki appeared to be. But, hard on the heels of that insight, came the realization Thor was enjoying the argument just as much as Loki, and for exactly the same reason. That made sense, too, now Tony thought about it: it had been unpleasant enough for Tony to see the disoriented, terrified shadow of his real self that Loki had been after his captivity. It was hard to imagine how much worse it must have been for Thor, or how relieved he must be, to have his little brother behaving like a stubborn, mouthy smartass again.

Newly confident the argument was not going to do irreparable harm to the brothers' relationship-- quite the opposite, in fact-- Tony felt quite comfortable joining Loki's housemates as they watched the show from the couch.

"Where's Annie?" he asked. Mitchell and George gestured to the apparently-empty space between them on the couch. Tony smiled a greeting at what he estimated to be Annie's eye level, and then sat down in a chair set at an angle to the couch.

Meanwhile, Thor was shouting that Loki lacked even the sense given to root vegetables and tiny forest creatures, and Loki was shouting back that no matter how painfully slowly Thor's brain worked, surely he had the intelligence to know when he required assistance. And then, as far as Tony could tell, each of them simultaneously resorted to the argument that if anything happened to the other, the one remaining would have to explain the situation to their mother, and that was when Tony cracked up totally.

Loki and Thor, who appeared to have forgotten all about their audience, turned on Tony with identical expressions of surprised irritation, which only made Tony laugh harder. Thor looked at Tony thoughtfully for a moment, and then remarked:

"I would like you to know, should I within the next few moments make reference to killing my brother, that I will indeed be speaking in the playful Midgardian sense, and you should not take me seriously." He scowled at Loki and added, "Though what I should most like to do is take him by the shoulders, and shake him until his common sense returns."

"I would like to see you try," Loki challenged, and Tony decided it was probably past time to intervene. He was no longer afraid either brother was going to hurt the other, but there was an outside chance of something unfortunate happening to all the furniture in the room, and Tony didn't care much for sitting on the floor.

"Okay, you two, respective corners," he instructed, stifling his laughter with difficulty. He realized from their blank looks that neither had any idea what he was talking about. Attempting to look serious, he tried again: "Quiet down. You're giving me a headache. And no, I don't want to hear any commentary about which one of you makes more noise, or whether it's the other one's fault for provoking him. Shut. Up. Both of you. And sit down."

Any final doubts Tony might have entertained about his read on the situation were banished when the brothers promptly sat down together on the love seat, without even elbowing each other. Much. Tony smiled at both of them, realizing as he did that his expression was almost certainly the one of bright indulgence that Pepper used on him. Before he could start laughing again, he called out,

"Okay, guys, you can come back now." Pepper had withdrawn when the shouting started, just in case it was accompanied by flying furniture, and Steve went with her on the assumption the brothers didn't need more witnesses to their argument. Which was very Steve, really, and kind of funny considering one more person would hardly have made any difference, what with the peanut gallery as crowded as it already was. Coulson had rolled his eyes at the brotherly confrontation and followed Steve and Pepper out of the room. Now he was leaning on the wall next to the kitchen door, looking patient, while Pepper sat in the final remaining comfortable chair and Steve brought a straight-backed one from the kitchen.

"Now," Tony said. "If I may, I'm going to summarize the situation: Thor, you want to protect Loki. Loki, you want to help Thor. Have I got that right?" Sheepish nods from both brothers. "Great. Now that we've established the truly disgusting selfishness of your motives, we can figure out what to do about them."

"I'm not going back," Loki insisted, which demonstrated once again that he didn't always know when to shut up. His expression, however, had lost the euphoria, and instead he looked genuinely anxious as he turned to Thor. "I have information to share with you, which Agent Coulson can confirm. I can certainly assist you. There is no reason for you to worry unduly about me. I am much better, my magic is recovering, my arm is healed-- "

" _What_ about your arm?" Thor pounced, and Loki's expression froze in an _oh shit_ look that made Tony feel nearly as much sympathy as amusement. It couldn't be good, when it got to the point that you could no longer even keep track of who knew what about your various injuries. Thor was shouting again: "What have you done to yourself this time? And where was Sif when it happened?"

Whoever this Sif was, Tony was suddenly glad it wasn't him.

Loki turned a look of entreaty on Coulson, who sighed and stepped into the breach:

"Calm down, Thor. Really. Sif told us, or anyway Loki, about the Jotun king's visit to Vanaheim, because your brother is an adult who doesn't need to be protected from information that concerns him." Coulson turned a considering eye on Loki and added, "Although I have to agree, a set of brakes would come in handy. Or maybe an anchor. Anyway-- we decided to investigate."

" _Why?_ " Thor demanded, addressing Loki and almost pleading. Tony had to admit it, he felt sorry for Thor as well right now. "You have already had a narrow escape from SHIELD. _Why_ would you then _immediately_ place yourself in jeopardy from the Jotun?"

"Because... because..." If Loki hadn't suddenly looked so upset, Tony might have been tempted to burst into the song from _The Wizard of Oz_. Tony, however, actually _could_ keep his mouth shut when he needed to, and so he did. Loki floundered on, "Because I believed that _I_ created the problem, that it was _my_ fault. I could not simply leave the difficulty of solving it to other people."

Thor heaved a sigh of angry frustration and glared at Loki, whose defiance had suddenly collapsed, leaving him miserable and anxious-looking. After a moment, Thor wrapped an arm around his brother's shoulders, pulling him close and muttering into his temple, "For one so clever, you can be remarkably stupid sometimes." Loki stiffened as though thinking about pulling away, but then seemed to reconsider and relaxed into the contact.

Tony did not heave a sigh of relief. Not at all.

~oOo~

Loki knew he had made a mistake the moment the words left his mouth-- he could not believe he had completely forgotten that Thor did not know about the injury to his arm. His only small comfort was that he would have had to tell the others about the incident anyway, in order to explain how he had reached his conclusions about Byleistr. But the fact he had blurted out the information like that worried him: he was obviously not as mentally sharp as he needed to be, despite the fact he felt perfectly fine. Well, perfectly fine compared to the way he had before his magic returned, anyway.

That was definitely something for him to be aware of: he was not going back to Asgard like an invalid, or a child in need of protection, but he also did not intend to be a liability to the Avengers, a burden to them who would end in causing Thor or someone else to be hurt. He was going to have to watch himself very carefully.

He was grateful to Agent Coulson for immediately stepping in to help explain matters, and also to Thor for calming down enough to actually listen. It took Thor a little longer to understand than Loki expected, and he actually fell prey to the very lapse of deductive reasoning their father believed Loki had: he thought the lack of a transformation somehow indicated Loki was not, in fact, Jotun after all. This seemed to matter to Thor only inasmuch as he thought it might encourage Loki to take the fate of the Jotun a little less personally, but he abandoned that line of thinking fairly quickly and concentrated on the main problem.

Which was just as well, since the only reason Loki took the fate of the Jotun personally was because, well, he had been _personally_ responsible for so much of what had gone wrong for them recently. Even the false Byleistr-- obviously, Loki had nothing to do with the changeling who took the place of the king, but perhaps the recent destabilization of the realm had something to do with the shapeshifter's ability to step into place without anyone noticing, or at least attempting to stop him.

"So the king of Jotunheim isn't Jotun," Steve summarized. "Why would anyone want to pose as him?"

"Certainly not to help themselves to the treasures of the realm, because there aren't any," Loki replied. "And not to use their might to defeat Asgard and Vanaheim in battle, because the Jotun have been considerably weakened by their… recent misfortunes… and would be no match for _two_ other realms. Unless this changeling has other, more powerful, allies, in which case why go to the trouble of impersonating Byleistr and involving the Jotun?

"Our belief-- " Loki made a gesture that encompassed Coulson and his friends-- "is that the Jotun threat to Asgard and Vanaheim is a blind, a decoy, to keep those two realms occupied and so unable to go to the assistance of the real target of the shapeshifter and his allies. Well, I say 'his,' and indeed it is unlikely to be 'hers' for reasons we will explain shortly," Loki amended. "The two realms are almost sure to win out over the one, but not immediately."

"So you believe the plan is to simply _sacrifice_ the Jotun?" Thor asked, and he looked just as horrified as he had that day on the Bifrost, when he tried to persuade Loki not to destroy Jotunheim. This, Loki reflected, was why Thor was a hero and Loki was not.

"I think so," Loki replied.

"And what do you think is the real target?" Steve asked, with an expression of foreboding.

"I found items of Midgardian manufacture in the possession of the false Byleistr," Loki explained. "Agent Coulson will have more to tell us about those in a moment. However, of the Nine Realms with which I am familiar, Midgard is the most vulnerable to an attack from the outside. As far as I know, it lacks appropriate weaponry to defend itself, and indeed is unlikely to have any way of knowing in advance of such an attack. When Jotunheim attacked Midgard, when Thor and I were babies, the realm only survived because Asgard came to its defense. That, I argue, is why Asgard's attention is now being carefully distracted."

Coulson spoke up now: "Midga-- Earth-- is supposed to have defenses in place now."

"SHIELD," said Tony.

"The Avengers," said Steve.

"What a terribly inconvenient time for SHIELD to be occupying itself with matters that have little real bearing on planetary security, and for the Avengers to be alienated from SHIELD," Loki remarked, deadpan.

"What Loki said about Byleistr-- it also made me wonder about Dr. Strange," Coulson added. "I said he wasn't acting like himself when he made that approach to Loki, just before he vanished."

"You think perhaps he, too, is a changeling?" Thor asked.

Coulson shrugged. "Maybe. We wouldn't be able to feel magic on him, and Loki couldn't sense magic at the time. Besides, he didn't know Strange anyway, so he wouldn't have noticed anything off about his magical signature. Maybe he's a changeling, too."

"It's interesting you should say that," Tony spoke up, "because Natasha had a look around his place for us-- the apartment he lives in when he's in New York. There was no sign of him, and I don't just mean after he left Scotland. He'd been in residence there for months, but the place looked to Natasha like it had been deserted for a pretty long time. There was no sign anyone had been living there at all."

Loki sat up straight. "This is not the same thing, I admit, but I remember when I searched the chambers occupied by Byleistr, they too gave an impression of desertion. It struck me as strange, that he should have no servants or luggage or personal effects at all."

"Temporary quarters," Steve offered.

"That is true," Thor spoke up, "but under the circumstances, one would actually expect the king to claim that space as aggressively as possible. He should not have behaved like a shy guest on sufferance, not wishing to cause trouble or call attention to himself."

"Why would our shapeshifter erase himself from his surroundings?" Tony asked.

"We spent some time in the library-- " Loki began.

"Of course you did," Thor murmured. Without looking at him, Loki kicked his brother quite accurately in the ankle and went on,

"Should we ever again find ourselves in Asgard together, brother, I will point it out to you. As I was saying, we visited the library, and Mitchell found a description of a magic-wielding shapeshifting species called the Dire Wraiths. They are not humanoid, and therefore would have no natural interest in the habits of a human-- or a Jotun, for that matter. Earlier, I referred to our shapeshifter as 'he.' The reason for that assumption is, according to the source we consulted, female Dire Wraiths assimilate the thoughts and memories of their victims-- '

"-- by _sucking out their brains,_ " George spoke up, as if unable to stop himself. Apparently, Loki was not the only one distracted by learning of that particular practice.

"We figure we can use George as bait, because it'll take the Dire Wraith so long to finish off his brain we'll have plenty of time to-- ow!" Mitchell yelped, as Annie hit him as hard as she could.

"Thank you, Annie," George muttered.

Loki grinned at his friends and completed his thought: "Because the creature that replaced Byleistr-- and possibly the one who replaced Strange-- evidences no sign of interest in taking on the life or habits of his victim, we believe that, if the changeling is indeed a Dire Wraith, it is likely to be a male. This may mean the victims are still alive."

"Why would they be kept alive?" Tony asked.

Loki shrugged. "There is no guarantee that they are, but it is possible the changelings wish to change places with them again, to let them, what is the term, 'take the fall' for the crimes of the shapeshifter. This would almost certainly involve leaving their bodies to be conveniently found in the aftermath of… whatever they have planned. In the meantime, however, there is a possibility the victims might yet be alive."

"Where would you keep a captive sorcerer and a Frost Giant?" Tony demanded.

Loki shrugged again. "You did mention undocumented prisoners in SHIELD custody. I am sure some of their cells are bigger than others. And... SHIELD has some practical experience in imprisoning sorcerers." Tony looked shamefaced, and Loki added quickly, "I do not say that as a rebuke to you, Tony. What happened to me was not your fault, and I apologize if at any time I appeared to be blaming you. I was not myself. I merely wish to point out that they were able to control me fairly easily, and I am not normally as soft as all that. They also had the inhibitor device in their possession for quite some time, certainly long enough to attempt copies, in addition of course to the technology involved in the helicarrier restraints." Loki felt suddenly cold all over as he went on, "If Dr. Strange is still alive, by now he is probably in the same condition I was during my own captivity. I think… we should waste no time in attempting to find and rescue him."

"I agree," Tony said. "But hang on a minute and let's see if we can make this all fit together. There's no point in just replacing Strange, is there? He's an important consultant, but he doesn't make policy decisions."

"The policy decisions that got our attention-- seizing the inhibitor, kidnapping Loki-- all happened after Fury was replaced," Steve reminded him. "And we now have reason to believe Fury wasn't just replaced, he was abducted, too." Coulson folded his arms and looked very alert.

"So you're saying you think this is all connected?" the agent asked, and Steve nodded slowly. "That's very interesting, because those 'items of Midgardian manufacture' that Loki mentioned a little while ago? They included documents that appear to have been created by Hydra. I assume the shapeshifter hung onto them because you can't check email on Jotunheim and he needed to keep his orders straight. Anyway, it looks like the shapeshifter and Hydra are working together."

"To take over Earth? What do they want?" Tony asked, as if anyone could answer that question. "Power, riches, and all the brains you can eat?"

"Maybe," Coulson said. "Try this on: according to the book in the Asgardian library, Dire Wraiths are capable of space travel. Suppose they're looking for… somewhere to expand their population. A new food source. Whatever. Hydra may or may not be capable of space travel, but we know for sure it's interested in taking over Earth. We also know the bastards have tortuous minds and never go for a straightforward plan where an overly complicated one will do. So, what if SHIELD's been infiltrated by multiple shapeshifters, for the purpose of destabilizing the agency and alienating the Avengers, so Hydra will find it easier to step into the power vacuum that's created?"

"That really is tortuous," Tony agreed. "They can't have expected nobody to notice."

"Notice what?" Coulson countered. "That the paranoid agent who's been appointed director is still paranoid, and maybe let power go to her head? None of you know Maria Hill particularly well. I _do_ know her, but I don't think that matters-- I know Strange, too, and I was fooled." He looked around the room, and then said thoughtfully, "Strange has always been cold and aloof, and the shapeshifter was like that, only moreso. Hill really is paranoid, and it's possible there's a shapeshifter in her place, using that characteristic to advance the plan. As far as I know, Hill's a typical SHIELD agent and her main focus is the job. Most of us don't have much in the way of personal lives, and they may well have done something about Strange's wife, too.

"The one real weakness in their disguises is, suppose they encounter someone who can recognize when magic is being used?"

"We all have some familiarity with magic, surely," Thor began, and Coulson shook his head.

"Not at the level we'd need. Remember the case we were on together in England? All of us, including you, George, Mitchell and Annie-- supernatural creatures themselves-- walked right through a field of active magic and none of us noticed a thing. I was carving trail markers on trees with a metal knife and had no idea how angry I was making the supernatural forces all around me. And in the meantime, who was smelling things and hearing things and finally was able to communicate with the forces the rest of us didn't even know were there, and persuade them to cooperate with us?"

Loki suddenly realized that everyone was looking at him, a situation that continued to make him instinctively assume he had done something to make them angry at him. That was manifestly not the case now, but he was anxious enough already that such attention still unnerved him a little.

Possibly as a result of this reaction, George got to the answer first:

"Hang on now. You're saying… you're saying Loki wasn't kidnapped because SHIELD thought he was dangerous, or because they needed a magic carrier to test the inhibitor on. You're saying he was kidnapped because they were afraid he could help you stop them."

"That's exactly what I'm saying," Coulson replied. "If they just wanted to test Tony's device, they could have used Strange. In fact, maybe the real Strange objected-- he's a cold bastard, but you never know, he might not have liked the idea of a magic carrier being treated that way. Maybe someone thought he was going to make a fuss about it, and that's part of the reason he disappeared. I think whoever is pulling the strings at SHIELD right now thought Loki was dangerous, all right, but in the sense that, if he got wind that his brother was worried about SHIELD, he might get involved and actually figure out there was unexpected magic going on. Abducting and torturing him not only neutralized him, it had the added benefit for them of distracting us, and Asgard as well."

"Once we catch whoever's responsible, we really should hand them over to Odin for a serious ass-kicking," Tony spoke up. "After we get our licks in for them messing with our magical consultant, of course. But speaking of sensing magic, wouldn't someone from Asgard or Vanaheim have noticed strange magic coming off the Jotun king?"

"Probably," Loki spoke up, "if they knew the king well. But as far as I know, the threats to Asgard were all delivered at second hand, which makes sense because the Allfather has indeed had personal contact with Byleistr and would probably recognize the deception. However, it is not as though magical forces are unknown on those realms, and it is quite possible the Vanir king had never met Byleistr in person before his recent visit. In that case, the awareness of magic around him would not seem unusual, and King Njord would not have any other impression to compare it to."

"Hmm. That makes sense," Tony agreed. "Okay, let's all remember these are only theories, but at least they give us a place to start, right?"

"Right," Mitchell spoke up. "The question is, what do we do next?"

"A friend of Tony's is arranging a meeting between the two of us and the senator who's currently overseeing SHIELD," Steve spoke up. "Loki, as long as you're back and you can sense magic again, would you be willing to come along with us? Just in case they're replacing people from the top down?" Thor opened his mouth to object, and Steve held up a hand. "We'll look out for him, okay? And I'm sure he'll look out for us." He smiled at Loki. "What do you say?"

Loki smiled back. "I would be delighted to help."

~oOo~

"I think I should come with you," Mitchell said, much later, as everyone was preparing to turn in. There wasn't enough room for everyone in the house and so, after some discussion, the four housemates were camping out on the beach. Loki was rather looking forward to it-- both the camping part, and the sleeping part.

"It is probably not necessary, but I would be very glad if you did," Loki admitted. "I am fond of Steve and Tony, but it is good to have one's own comrades-- " He paused, and then started laughing.

"What?" Mitchell asked.

"I cannot believe I just said that, and meant it." Sobering, Loki repeated, "I would appreciate it if you could come with us. It would make me feel much better, and would undoubtedly reassure Thor, too, since he is not permitted to go."

"I can't believe Steve talked him into staying behind," Annie said. "I mean, I know undercover work isn't his strong point, and Steve and Tony want to keep this low-profile, but I can't believe he agreed to it. I do feel sorry for him-- I know he's worried."

"Indeed," Loki murmured, and carefully did not remind Annie how angry she had been at Thor only a day or two before. She caught his eye, read his mind, and made a face at him. Loki grinned at her and then, as worry bubbled up again, added, "I just hope I am able to be of assistance. After all the trouble I have put them to-- "

George held up a hand. "Don't start that. I'm serious. Just… don't."

"Don't what?" Loki asked, bewildered and a little abashed. George really did sound very serious indeed.

"That thing you do, where you twist everything around so it's all your fault, or mostly your fault, or might possibly in some way be partly your fault, so it's your job to fix it. Or maybe just to feel guilty about it, whatever 'it' is, because there's nothing else you can do. Where does that even come from? You got kidnapped. You didn't _do_ anything to make it _necessary_ that you get kidnapped. It's not your _fault_ , and it's also not your _fault_ the Avengers put themselves to some trouble to save you. It's a _good_ thing, that they care about you enough to want to help you. Why do you _do_ that to yourself?"

"I… I do not know," Loki mumbled, feeling more self-conscious than he could ever remember feeling in the company of his three friends. He knew George did not mean to be unkind, that his querulous tone was not intended to be hurtful, but Loki was not sure how to react.

"I think I do," Mitchell spoke up. The other three looked at him, and he said gently, "It's unpleasant to feel like you're always to blame for everything, but it might be worse to realize that sometimes things _just happen_ and there's nothing you can do about them. It's kind of scary, to think you're not in control. At least if it's _all your fault,_ you can feel like you've got some sort of power over the situation." Loki tried to meet Mitchell's eyes, and could not. The vampire smiled kindly and went on, "It's not a bad thing, necessarily. When you really have done something wrong, it's good to recognize it and try to fix it. But you can also drive yourself crazy, trying to control how other people feel about you, or blaming yourself for things that were never under your control in the first place. And you can get hurt trying too hard too fix them all by yourself."

"Why are you telling me this?" Loki asked, in a voice he hated for being small and trapped-sounding.

"Because," Mitchell replied calmly, "it's something I've noticed, and I didn't think you had, and I felt responsible to make sure you were aware of it." He paused, as if waiting for a response that didn't come, and then went on, "We're not trying to hurt your feelings or make you feel guilty. It's just… it's pretty scary for us, when you get one of your ideas, and we don't know if you're going to just let yourself get hurt or something. Nobody wants to see a friend harm himself-- and that includes _your_ friends, all right? Although it's definitely progress, that you were willing to let Annie help you on Vanaheim, and George at the lodge, and me now. Keep doing that. That's what friends are for." Mitchell smiled suddenly. "There isn’t any ice, and you're not all alone. Okay?"

Loki looked at Mitchell, and could not think of a single thing to say. After a moment, Annie took his hand, squeezed it, and spoke up with cheerful practicality.

"All right. If you boys are going to be in any shape at all to be useful to Tony and Steve tomorrow, we should probably get ourselves some sleep. Is there any point bothering with a tent, or are we just going to be all romantic and sleep under the stars?"

To Loki's great relief, George and Mitchell permitted her to distract them into a discussion of their campsite, and after a moment or two Loki was even able to join in.


	15. Chapter 15

Loki probably would have been worried about the meeting with Senator Stern, had he not been so busy being afraid he would be run over before he ever got to it. Washington was bigger than Bristol, though perhaps not quite as much bigger as the impression it gave, and there were cars everywhere, teeming upon the roads, and all driving on the wrong side.

It was not that Loki had never been to America before, but his first visit had been brief, and limited to the makeshift SHIELD compound where he tormented his brother. His second trip had taken him to the great city of New York, and then to the coast of California, but since he had spent most of that time locked up and stuporous, he had had little opportunity to learn about American traffic patterns.

After his first close call, when Steve yanked him onto the curb by the back of his black suit jacket after he looked the wrong way before trying to cross the street, Loki (and Mitchell, who was equally disoriented) made a point of staying behind the two Avengers.

If Loki had been more confident in his supply of magic, he would have set some sort of ward on himself and Mitchell, a protection-against-being-run-over-by-a-car-while-looking-the-wrong-way charm. As it was, he simply tried his best not to look like a duckling or a baby rhinoceros as he tagged along after the two Avengers.

If what Mitchell looked like was any indication, he was not succeeding.

At least they blended in with the humans around them. Tony, whose generosity was both endless and extremely practical, had replaced the Asgardian garb still worn by Loki and his friends (except for Annie, who of course was invisible to him, and who once on Midgard again had somehow found herself back in her usual grey sweater and black tights anyway) with appropriate Midgardian clothing. This was doubly welcome since all of them had only the clothes they stood up in.

Suits being expected for such a meeting as this, Loki and Mitchell had been outfitted in black ones similar to Agent Coulson's. The effect, as everyone agreed, was slightly different.

"I feel as though we should be singing about wanting to hold someone's hand," Loki remarked, as he considered his own and Mitchell's appearances.

Pepper, who was giving Mitchell unnecessary assistance with his black necktie, looked startled. "How do you know about the Beatles?"

"He's been living in England for more than a year," Tony pointed out. "I assume something has sunk in."

"Do not be silly," Loki said, "everyone has heard of the Beatles. There is a book, in the library at Asgard."

Everyone except Thor looked astonished at this news. Thor simply looked like he did not know what any of them were talking about. Loki really was going to have to show his brother to the library some day.

"Wait," Tony said, "there's a _book_ about the _Beatles_ in the _library at Asgard?"_

Loki raised an eyebrow. "Have I not just said so? There are books about the religious beliefs and customs and great battles and heroes of every one of the Nine Realms, and many beyond. It is an excellent library, except for its deficiencies in the area of fiction. Of course there is a book about the Beatles."

The housemates looked at each other, puzzled and also giggling, and then George spoke up: "That's strange, because you've had that _Abbey Road_ poster on your wall since you moved in, and you've always given us the impression you didn't know what it was."

Loki frowned. " _Abbey Road_?"

"Yes. Their last album. Well, the last one they recorded, although it was released before _Let It Be_. The poster on your wall is the cover art: the Beatles walking across Abbey Road."

"That cannot be," Loki argued. "The Beatles were very young, and wore neckties."

Mitchell patted him on the shoulder. "Must have been a book from the early days. Never mind, we'll catch up later. We can have a listening party."

Loki had thought of asking Mitchell to tell him more while they were en route to Washington, but as it happened they were preoccupied with laying their plans for what was ahead of them. Loki was able, without difficulty, to produce enough magic for a small glamour on the Customs agents who greeted them when they landed, which ensured they accepted as genuine the passports Tony had faked for Loki and Mitchell-- although, really, the computer-generated image Tony produced to get around his inability to photograph Mitchell was a work of art, and might have passed inspection even without assistance from Loki.

And then they had gone on to their task. They were bound to meet with Tony's friend, Lt. Colonel Rhodes, and then with this Senator Stern. The senator apparently thought he would be speaking only to Rhodes, to discuss what to do about the rogue Avengers.

Tony and Steve were to lead the meeting, while Loki and Mitchell were supposed to remain very quiet. Loki would be feeling for magic around Senator Stern, while Mitchell was to intervene if he thought Loki was about to say something unwise-- because, as the incident where he spoke of his arm injury without even noticing he had done so proved, he was currently quite capable of losing control of his silver tongue.

There was another problem: if Stern really had been replaced by a shapeshifter, he would surely realize Loki was a magical creature even if he did not recognize him as a former prisoner. In that case, he would certainly realize the Avengers were onto him, and that would be dangerous. On the other hand, it was even more dangerous for the Avengers to be unsure who was a shapeshifter and who was not. On balance, this was the best option open to them.

Despite confident words to Thor before they left, Loki really was frightened. He was particularly worried about the fact he knew Tony was worried, although Tony also uttered bold words. Loki had the impression that Tony possibly did not completely trust Lt. Col. Rhodes, at least not enough to be sure he would not to try to return Loki to SHIELD custody.

Obviously, Tony and Steve would not allow that to happen. Loki looked at the Avengers' backs and reassured himself: Tony and Steve would not allow Rhodes, no matter how dutiful he was to his commanders, to harm Loki or Mitchell. And, of course, Loki himself was not entirely defenseless anymore, nor was Mitchell. There was no cause for fear. Truly.

He was afraid anyway, and all of them knew it. He would feel more shame about it if he had not been so sure the others were experiencing at least a little fear of their own.

Rhodes was staying at a hotel, and Stern had agreed to meet him in his suite. Loki and the others got there first, about an hour before Stern was supposed to arrive. Steve cast an encouraging smile at Loki and Mitchell as they entered. Tony, carrying a briefcase like most of the men Loki could see, led the way, calling Rhodes from the elevator on the way to the fourth floor. When they reached the door of his suite, it opened before Tony had a chance to knock.

"Get in here, all of you," Rhodes ordered, pulling the door wide and actually seizing Tony by the arm. He glanced down the hall, apparently checking for enemies, and closed the door swiftly behind them.

"What's wrong?" Tony asked. Rhodes ignored him, looked at Loki and Mitchell, and asked,

"Which one of you is Loki?" Loki, unsure he should confess to his identity but sure he did not want Mitchell involved in some misunderstanding, raised a hand. Rhodes nodded. "Okay. I got hold of some footage you all need to know about, but I'm not sure Loki should see it. It's... upsetting."

"This is footage of Loki? In... custody?" Tony asked.

Rhodes nodded. "Yeah. Being interrogated."

Loki and his friends exchanged looks: if Rhodes had seen Loki on camera, he should have been able to tell him apart from Mitchell.

"I'm not sure his own mother would recognize him by the end of it," Rhodes added. It crossed Loki's mind that it might depend upon _which_ of his own mothers was looking at the images, since one of them had only known him, very briefly, as an undersized blue infant. He forebore, however, to say so.

"I went looking for interrogation footage on the SHIELD server, and I couldn't find any," Tony said. "How'd you manage it?"

"It's not on the server. It was loaded on the hard drive of a laptop in Maria Hill's office." Tony opened his mouth, and Rhodes gestured to him to be quiet. "I might be a good company man, but I still have a conscience, all right? Now shut up and come look at this. Except-- ?" He looked at Loki with a genuinely concerned expression, which was deeply reassuring. Surely he could not mean any harm to someone he was trying to protect even from seeing frightening images?

"Seeing it can hardly be worse than living through it," Loki pointed out.

"I suppose," Rhodes muttered. "Okay. I've got it loaded on my own laptop-- "

Loki would not admit it, but the video footage was every bit as upsetting to him as Rhodes feared. He had indeed lived through it, but he did not remember, and he did not recall the occasion, according to the date-stamp only a day or two after his abduction, when he had been asked questions while someone, presumably one of the ant-like guards, recorded the event.

There was no doubt about it, Thor was right: Loki lacked some sort of basic instinct for self-preservation. There was no other explanation for his response, when a nearly-inaudible voice from off-camera apparently demanded Loki's promise to assist SHIELD in some unspecified manner. He cringed as he heard his own voice, slurring and weak even this early in the proceedings, rejecting the demand:

"No. I have assisted SHIELD before, and it must be known that, if you have genuine need of my assistance, you need only ask. All this... terrorism... must be in aid of something else."

"SHIELD needs for you to know that your magic is no match for our power," a pitiless female voice, presumably Maria Hill's, replied.

"There is no need of this," Loki protested from the screen, desperation leaking into his tone. Loki could hardly bear to look at this image of himself, bound by the detestable collar, his body and voice twisted in agony and weakness.

And apparently his brain, too, because this was when he made what might have been his fatal mistake:

"You are a magic user yourself," he pleaded, "surely you know all magic is not used for evil. Can we not-- "

The video ended abruptly, as though someone had shut off the camera. In the hotel room, Loki felt cold sweat sliding down his back, and everyone looked at him.

"One of these days," Loki said, trying to jest, "one of these days, I will learn when to keep my mouth shut."

"Maria Hill is human," Rhodes said. "She's not a sorceress. At least, I'm pretty sure she's not. I assume you can sense other magic users?" Loki nodded. "Okay. So whoever interrogated you, posing as Hill, is a magic user as well, and if there was ever any chance they'd let you go, they couldn't when they realized you knew it." He hesitated. "There's more footage, from two and four weeks into your captivity, but you're not coherent in any of it. I don't think-- "

"Nor do I," Loki said hastily. Mitchell was the only person in the room who had not seen the worst of what SHIELD had done to Loki, and there was no reason for him to see it now. Or Loki either.

Loki tried very hard not to think about why the false Maria Hill had not simply had him killed. She, or it, must have had some plan in mind that required his corpse to be as fresh as possible when it was put to use.

"Okay," Rhodes replied, looking relieved. "But you aren't the only magic user SHIELD locked up. You had all better see this."

The second set of videos depicted a series of interviews between the shapeshifted Maria Hill and Dr. Strange-- presumably, the real Dr. Strange-- who was bound in the same manner as Loki. The time stamps on the videos overlapped with Loki's captivity, which meant Tony was correct about someone making copies of his device for SHIELD-- or whoever was making use of SHIELD.

It was apparent, however, the copy was not as efficacious as the original, because even by the four-week mark Strange, disheveled and enraged but still coherent, was able to cast a shower of green sparks at his tormentors. The magical assault, feeble as it was, was still enough to make his interrogators back away.

This defiance was accompanied by strange exclamations in non-response to the questions and other remarks of the false Maria Hill. _"I scorn you, scurvy companion. What, you poor, base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen mate! Away, you moldy rogue, away!_ " and _"Thou leathern-jerkin, crystal-button, knot-pated, agatering, puke-stocking, caddis-garter, smooth-tongue, Spanish pouch!"_ being among the least comprehensible, but most impressive, of them.

Tony looked thoughtful when the last video ended. "Four weeks in an inhibitor, and he's still got the presence of mind to quote _Henry IV_ at them. That's gotta be a Hammer Industries knockoff of the Stark device."

"I was thinking the same thing," Rhodes agreed. "It seems to partly shut down his magic, and he definitely looks like he's in a lot of pain, but it doesn't work well enough to make him really manageable."

 _Manageable._ That was a tactful way of putting it, Loki reflected. Much more dignified than _nearly comatose and unable to control basic bodily functions._

"Yeah, this is one occasion when the fact Hammer can't design a loop in a piece of string turns out to be a good thing," Tony muttered.

Rhodes rubbed his temples. "I take back what I said before, about you freeing dangerous aliens. I'm sorry about that."

"I think there are plenty of dangerous aliens mixed up in this, Rhodey," Tony replied. "It's just that none of them are Loki."

"Understood," Rhodes agreed. "What are we going to do if Stern turns out to be one of them?"

Tony patted his briefcase. "If things go south, Steve and Loki will keep him busy while I suit up. These portable suits are great."

Rhodes smiled, reached under the table on which his laptop sat, and picked up a briefcase of his own.

"I totally agree."

~oOo~

Loki did not have to wait for Stern to enter the room before deciding on the magical status of the senator: a moment after he heard the elevator arrive at the floor, he nearly gagged on what he experienced as, more or less, a smell of rancid fish.

It was not always possible to tell whether magic was good or evil just by the sensation that accompanied it, but Loki was prepared to wager this particular stench did not mean anything good.

"You've got something?" Steve asked quietly. Loki nodded, wondering whether he looked as nauseated as he suddenly felt.

"You should probably duck into the other room," Tony offered. " You and Mitchell, both. We needed you to figure out whether Stern was himself or a shapeshifter, and you've done it."

"I do not need to-- " Loki protested feebly.

"Loki, you look like you've seen-- well, not Annie," Steve said. "It's a bit of a giveaway. Just get out of sight."

Loki sighed. "I would hate to think I am losing my ability to tell lies. It was always one of my better talents."

"I'm sure it'll come back to you," Steve said kindly. "Go."

Mitchell patted Loki on the arm and they both stepped into the bedroom, leaving the door slightly ajar so they could hear the conversation on the other side. A moment after they had hidden, they heard the door open to the suite.

"Senator," Rhodes could be heard saying, his voice warm and respectful. "Thank you so much for agreeing to meet with me."

"Certainly," replied a voice that certainly _sounded_ human. The door closed, and presumably Tony and Steve had been concealed by it, because there was a momentary pause, and then the voice said, with patently false _bonhomie_ , "Well, well. This is an unexpected pleasure."

"It's good to see you, too, Senator," Tony replied, matching the other's tone. "We thought it might be... embarrassing to you, for anyone to know you were meeting with the rogue Avengers, so we asked Rhodey here to help us out."

"That was very thoughtful of you," Stern said. "What do you want from me?"

"We'd like to know about Nick Fury," Steve spoke up. "Where is he, and why was he replaced?"

In the bedroom, Loki nodded to Mitchell: that was a reasonable question to be asked by the Avengers. If Stern could not sense Loki's presence-- and, all magic users being different, it was possible he could not, though Loki was not foolish enough to count on it-- then perhaps he would accept the question at face value. The ideal situation would be for Stern-- "Stern"-- not to realize he had been found out.

"That was a policy decision that doesn't really concern you," Stern said smoothly, which was much the sort of reply one would expect from one in the position of the real Stern.

"Of course it concerns us, Senator," Tony insisted. "The director? The guy who runs field operations and gives the Avengers our assignments? It was bad policy to replace him without letting any of us know about it ahead of time."

"You're hardly in a position to complain about that," Stern pointed out. "Not after you freed two legitimate SHIELD prisoners."

"T'chah," Tony said, or a noise to that effect. "What did you expect, when one of them was Thor's little brother, and the other was a member of our team?"

"I am going to assume you're not crazy enough to try and hold me against my will," Stern said calmly, "so I'm going to leave now. And, fair warning, I'll be notifying the authorities of your whereabouts. Yours, too, Lt. Col. Rhodes."

"You've greatly overestimated our sanity, Senator," Tony said. "We need to know what happened to Nick Fury."

"He was replaced, and decided to retire," Stern insisted, sounding not a bit intimidated. Loki might have been having trouble making his face lie for him, but he could still identify falsehoods by others, and Stern's tone was truthful. Even if Loki had not smelt magic on him, that would have been a giveaway: a human in this situation should have felt some apprehension.

"No, he wasn't, and no, he didn't," Steve said flatly.

At that point, everything happened very quickly: there was the sound of something moving very fast, furniture being knocked over, and Tony screaming.

Loki and Mitchell did not pause long enough to look at each other: Loki threw open the connecting door and the two burst into the front room of the suite.

Loki did not know what Senator Stern looked like, had not cared enough about that detail to look it up, but he was quite sure the human senator was not obese, slimy, and red-skinned, with three-fingered hands and three-toed feet, a long tail, and the mouth of a lamprey eel. The creature was, both hilariously and hideously, garbed in the tattered remains of the suit it had been wearing in its human form.

It was a horrifying-looking creature, but that was not why Tony was screaming. The Dire Wraith-- and it was indeed a Dire Wraith-- had seized him in its claws, knocking Steve and Rhodes aside with its muscular tail, and was in the process of drilling into Tony's skull with a tongue every bit as long and disgusting as Loki had imagined.

It transpired that Loki's magical reserves were in rather better shape than he had feared, and anyway, adrenaline affected them in exactly the same way it affected all other types of strength. Loki threw himself upon the Wraith, gathering and twisting every tendril of magic he could produce into what amounted to a rope, which he cast around the creature. It tried to continue its assault on Tony, but its attention was thoroughly distracted when Loki began to siphon off its magic.

Loki had always been as much a conduit of magic as a producer of it, which meant that, on Midgard, his powers were weaker than on realms where magic existed in the atmosphere. He had always known that, technically, he could draw off magic from another user of magic, but had always been hesitant to do so.

He had hesitated simply because it was hard to say what effect another's magic might have on him, especially of the malevolent kind. This being something of an emergency, he knew he had to try.

As the Dire Wraith's magic passed into him, Loki realized he had been wise, up to this point, to be cautious: he could actually feel the creature's hatred, malevolence, and thirst for power filling him. Had he had a chance to think about it in advance, Loki would have assumed the sensation of drawing off the Dire Wraith's magic would be much like the feeling of madness he partly recalled from when he committed all his crimes.

It was not. The sense of desolation was not there, the desperation, the raw longing and _need_ that had driven him, lashed him toward his crimes. This was an evil that knew what it wanted, that bore not even the vestiges of interest in or love for anything else. The part of his mind that retained awareness, that remained Loki, was surprised to realize that, even possessed by evil, he actually could have been worse.

There was no time to reflect on that idea, not with this vile power filling him. It was the most terrifying sensation Loki had ever felt, but he was unable to let go of the creature, unable to stop his efforts to draw off its power, because if he did that, the Wraith would kill Tony. Loki therefore continued the transfer, even thought he had no idea what would be left of him when the transfer was complete.

Rhodes was suiting up as fast as he could, while Steve blocked the door, and the Wraith squirmed in what amounted to the deathgrip of Loki, clutching Tony in a deadly embrace of its own. Loki spared a moment to address Rhodes, because he knew Rhodes was the only one he could trust with the request he needed to make:

"You may have to kill me." He did not know what this amount of purely evil magic would do to him, but there was a possibility it would possess him, unwilling as he was, and there was no telling what it might make him do after that. He did not know whether he would even be left vulnerable to War Machine's weapons, but they were all he had, and he knew Mitchell and Steve well enough to be sure they would die trying to reason with whatever he became.

The Wraith's struggles weakened. It released Tony, whose temple was bleeding but not pierced, and Loki thankfully could feel nothing of Tony in the forces invading his body and his mind. Steve pulled Tony clear, arms around him to hold him up, but Tony was struggling and looking quite lively. Loki continued to hold on, continued to drain the creature, perfectly prepared to kill it if he had to, when he suddenly felt it lose consciousness.

Imprisoned for interrogation was better than dead, and if they could not contain the creature safely, well, they could always kill it later. Loki let go of the Wraith and stumbled backward, but not because he was weak. No, he was filled with power: violent, cruel, malevolent power. And the part of his mind that retained control of his mental processes under nearly all circumstances was crying out to him to rid himself of it, warning him that it was poison.

Loki needed no second warning. There was no time to think about it: thinking gave the power time to get a grip on him. Loki threw his right hand up in what probably looked like a "stop" gesture, aimed at the wall between the rooms of the suite rather than anyone within the room, and expelled the alien power in a yellow-green blast that reduced the wall to splinters. Loki heard himself scream as the magic tried to cling to him, wanting to keep him, to make use of him, and he used the last of his own magical reserves to push it away, to void himself of it, in what amounted to the magical equivalent of sticking one's fingers down one's throat.

He was scarcely able to see by now but he was aware of shapes, of movement, and was able to turn the continuing blast of magic away from the others, using his left hand as well, although he almost never cast magic with his non-dominant hand, and threw the last of the magic at the exterior wall. The window shuddered and then exploded outward, taking the frame and part of the brickwork with it.

Loki had a sudden sensation of emptiness, felt everything whirl around him just as his legs gave way and darkness enveloped him.

~oOo~

He awoke to a sensation of arms around him, felt his cheek pressed into fabric, felt no sensation of breath or heartbeat in the body he rested against. Without opening his eyes, he knew who held him.

"Hi, Mitchell," he slurred, and the arms tightened, a hand coming up to pet his still-muzzy head.

"Hi, Loki. Good to have you back." Mitchell's casual tone did not quite come off. Loki smiled to himself, still without opening his eyes, and asked,

"Where are we?"

"Driving like hell for New York," Tony's voice replied, just as Loki began to register the sensation of being in a moving vehicle. "Rhodey let us take his car."

"Just don't get us stopped for speeding," Steve advised. "Not with Loki not wearing a seatbelt, and a Dire Wraith stuffed in the trunk."

Loki decided it was probably undignified, not to mention uncomfortable for Mitchell, for him to remain in this posture any longer. He opened his eyes, relieved to find darkness around them, and began trying to sit up. Mitchell helped him, got him into his own seat in the back of the car, helped him recline it and fasten his seatbelt. Loki found the armrest in the passenger-side door, clung to it to anchor himself and closed his eyes again. Then he was able to ask,

"What happened?"

"You mean after you blew the room to smithereens and then passed out?" Tony asked, sounding reassuringly like Tony. Loki smiled again and waited for Tony to go on. "Well, for a minute there, Rhodey was going to take you up on that offer to kill you. He didn't seem to understand you weren't on a rampage, you were trying to get rid of the Dire Wraith's magic. Luckily, he wasn't willing to kill Mitchell to get to you-- "

"I don't think anyone mentioned the vampire thing to him, so he probably couldn't have done me much harm," Mitchell added reassuringly. "He didn't seem to have any pointy sticks in his armoury." Loki reached out and felt Mitchell take his hand. It was dark, and he was among friends, so he didn't allow himself to feel ashamed of wanting the contact.

"It was still very brave of you. Thank you," Loki said. Mitchell squeezed his hand and Tony snorted from the front seat.

"Speaking of very brave, can we talk about you latching onto that creature while it was sucking out my brain? Even though you thought it might end up taking you over and you'd need to be _killed_ to stop it?"

"Apparently it was not necessary after all," Loki shrugged. "Which I agree was fortunate. I would hate for the rest of you to have to return to my brother and explain my fate." A very unpleasant thought struck him. He opened his eyes and started to sit up. "Speaking of my brother, to say nothing of Annie, surely there is no need to mention this-- ?"

"Stop changing the goddamn subject," Tony snapped. "Excuse me, Steve. Stop changing the subject. Thank you, Loki. I'm extremely grateful to you, for making sure I didn't die that way."

Loki shifted uncomfortably. "There is no need for thanks. I... owe you a great deal."

"Paid," Tony replied. "Evens. Debt cancelled."

"I... do not think... " Loki argued feebly.

"I do," Tony replied. "Because I still _can._ Think, I mean. Thanks to you. Apparently you have no idea just what a big deal my brain is, but it is, in fact, a _very_ big deal, and therefore the fact you rescued it is also a very big deal. To say nothing of my life, but frankly, given a choice between my brain and my life, I'd pick the brain every time."

"Don't argue with him," Steve pleaded. "None of us have the strength to listen to him all the way to New York. You asked what happened. Well, the creature passed out, and you passed out, and once we convinced Rhodey you were going to wake up yourself-- and once again, welcome back-- he gave us his car keys, and we picked up you and the creature, which I guess is a Dire Wraith, and beat it for the parking garage."

"Did no one come to investigate the blast?" Loki asked.

"Eventually, sure," Tony spoke up, "but we were long gone by then. Believe me, hotel security isn't paid enough to go rushing to investigate the sound of a room being pulverized like that. We had a pretty good lead. Rhodey's going to pass the whole thing off as an accident with a new weapons system on the War Machine suit, which means SHIELD will get the bill. So we stuffed the thing in the trunk, and you in the backseat, and took off. Which I believe brings you up to date."

"And we are going to New York?" Loki asked, not quite so weak he could not feel apprehension at the idea of returning to the city where he knew he had been imprisoned.

"That's right," Tony said.

"Why are we going to New York?"

"So we can hole up in Stark Tower, lock our prisoner up nice and safe, and have a little visit with Justin Hammer, whose tech is being used by whoever's running this scam within SHIELD. And we're also going to get the old gang together again."

"Oh. That will be pleasant," Loki said drowsily.

"Sure will. Now, how about you have a nice nap, and we'll wake you when we arrive, okay?"

"Okay," Loki agreed, since there was little he could do at the moment, with his brain as sludgy as it was. He leaned his head back and a moment later felt Mitchell tucking something-- presumably his own suit jacket-- around him.

And then a genuine thought struck him.

"Tony?"

"Yes?"

"Do you still have the plans for the inhibitor?"

"No. I destroyed them."

 _Damn._ Not quite able to believe what he was saying, Loki asked,

"Do you think you can remember enough about the device to make another?"


	16. Chapter 16

The problem, Loki reflected, with holding the Dire Wraith prisoner was: it was terribly difficult to know what would constitute an acceptable compromise between security for the captors and comfort for the creature.

This was to say nothing of the question of what would even be comfortable for a Dire Wraith in the first place: the library book back in Asgard had little to say about their personal habits, and there were no clues to be gained from the Vanir envoys' quarters, or apparently the apartment of Dr. Strange. All those instances had shown was that either Dire Wraiths were very careful indeed to leave no sign of their presence, or that human and Vanir accommodations were completely unsuitable for them. Different species of course had different standards-- Loki recalled, for instance, Wilbur the pig and his fondness for a nice manure pile. This implied their captive might be very uncomfortable right now, which was worrisome. Loki felt little sentiment toward the Dire Wraith, but he did not see any purpose in being deliberately cruel to him. Or, as the case might be, her.

Admittedly, this was not Loki's first concern upon arriving at Stark Tower, since he was at the time feeling rather like Harry Potter after an encounter with a Dementor. If Steve and Tony (who, to be fair, had more reason than anyone to feel vengeful) had locked their prisoner in a broom closet, Loki would not have paid much attention. Not that he thought either of them would do such a thing, it was just that, as they ascended to the penthouse, Loki had been quite grateful to let the Avengers deal with the captive while he propped himself against the wall of the elevator, trying to convince himself to neither fall over nor vomit on the floor.

Safely inside Tony's apartment, Loki had left Tony and Steve to deal with the still-unconscious Wraith, and followed Mitchell into the kitchen. While his friend ransacked the cupboards for any trace of tea, Loki took possession of half a bag of chocolate chips turned up by the search-- he offered to share, but Mitchell assured him it was unnecessary. It turned out Professor Lupin was quite right about the restorative properties of chocolate: by the time he finished the bag, Loki felt recovered enough to go looking for something he might be able to turn into dinner for all of them.

When Steve and Tony finally reappeared, Mitchell had unearthed a box of stale orange pekoe teabags, which he and Loki agreed were better than nothing, although probably not by much. There being no teapot, Mitchell was boiling water in a saucepan. Loki, meanwhile, had found a package of pasta and a jar of marinara, and had designs on the saucepan as soon as Mitchell was finished with it.

When neither Tony nor Steve spoke right away, Loki asked,

"What have you done with our… guest?"

"There's a secure room," Tony replied. At Loki and Mitchell's questioning glances, Tony clarified, "No, I don't lock up rival business associates. Well, not very often. And not in there. It started out as a panic room, and then after I became Iron Man I decided I didn't feel particularly panicky anymore, so I had it converted into... well, a cell. It's a cell. I've never had to use it before, but I figured: you never know."

Mitchell let out a hoot of startled laughter. When everyone looked at him, he spluttered apologetically, " _You never know._ Story of our _lives_ , mate. Have some tea."

Loki accepted a cup, handling it carefully because the saucepan was hard to pour from, and so the outside of the cup was wet and very hot. It was just as well Annie was not here, to see what a poor excuse for a cup of tea they had been reduced to.

Tony began in his turn to rummage through the cupboards, probably looking for coffee. Loki spoke to his back:

"You told me you could replicate the inhibitor."

"Did I?" Tony asked, without looking around.

"In the car. You told me you could do it," Loki insisted.

"Yeah, just before you passed out again," Tony said, moving cereal boxes randomly. Loki began to suspect Tony was not so much looking for something, as avoiding addressing him directly.

"I did not _pass out,_ I fell asleep," Loki corrected.

"Yes, well, whatever. You didn't seem to be in any shape for a long technical discussion."

"Are you saying you were humouring me?" Loki demanded.

Tony glanced at him over his shoulder, grinned charmingly. "Just a little bit."

Loki compressed his lips in exasperation. "It was a genuine question!"

Tony uttered a noise of triumph, turned around with a container of ground coffee in his hands. At Loki's expression, he sobered.

"I know it was," he said quietly. "And I know we need to come up with a way of containing that creature, of making sure it doesn't get powerful enough to hurt any of us, or get away. I'm just not very comfortable with the idea of making another of those devices."

"I am not exactly thrilled at the prospect, myself," Loki pointed out. "As hard as it may be to believe, I take no pleasure in the idea of making him suffer. But his powers are going to return, at which point there is no reason to believe he will not try to attack us again. I am not willing to bet all our lives on my own ability to stop him. If you can think of another way to contain him, I am, as they say, all ears."

Tony looked thoughtful as he measured coffee into the coffee-maker. "You know, I might be able to do something with the cell itself."

Loki paused in the act of picking up his annoyingly delicate, terribly hot teacup. He missed the nice thick mugs at home. And the teapot.

And _home._

"With the cell?" he repeated politely, ruthlessly squashing his moment of weakness. He was sure Mitchell-- sure all of them-- wanted to go home just as much as he did.

"Yeah," Tony said thoughtfully. "The room's all wired up-- for communication, for defense. The door's electrified. I might be able to jury-rig something that could repel a magical assault. That way, we could leave the creature loose inside the room, and it wouldn't be harmed as long as it didn't try to escape. You can probably make it understand that, right?"

"He has been posing as a United States senator for an unspecified amount of time," Loki replied, rather acidly. "I rather suspect he comprehends at least some dialects of the English language."

"You might be surprised," Tony snickered. "Okay, we'll speak to it-- "

"Him," Mitchell said quietly.

"Pardon?" Tony asked.

"I know we don't know if the Wraith is male or female, but let's not call him 'it,' okay?" Mitchell suggested.

Tony paused, then glanced at Loki's expression of relief, and then Steve, who suddenly looked shamefaced even though he had not said anything.

"Sorry," Tony said, generously. "Him. I'll do some work on the wiring, and then we can have a chat with him."

Loki set aside his tea and picked up the box of pasta. "We should also find out whether he is hungry."

~oOo~

It took some time for Tony to make his modifications to the cell. His task could not have been easy, but he was, after all, the man who had built both an arc reactor and the Iron Man prototype while held captive in a cave, so he managed. By the time Tony considered it safe to deliver food to their prisoner, the Wraith's share of dinner had cooled considerably. Loki decided against reheating it: it was not he that thought cold pasta with marinara sauce would be especially appealing to the Dire Wraith, more that he did not much care for the idea of having a bowl of hot pasta hurled at him.

Tony, in his turn, did not much care for the idea of offering the prisoner another chance to suck out his brain-- or Loki's-- and so he suited up to accompany Loki into the cell. Steve and Mitchell remained outside the door, ready to offer assistance if the situation turned ugly.

The cell was clean, and rather larger than the one in which Loki had been interrogated in the video clip. It contained the usual offices: bolted-down bed and table, toileting facilities behind a bolted-down screen. Loki did not want to think about the specifics of Dire Wraith toileting requirements.

The Dire Wraith himself… lurked? Oozed? Sat? Sat, Loki decided, on the edge of the cot, facing the door.

Loki had very little recollection of his own captivity, but he retained an impression of trying to talk to his jailers, and of receiving no response. He was not sure whether the memory was real, or something his mind had used to fill the hole in his recollection, but it left Loki with a feeling of helpless unease. Which, he supposed, was what his captors had wanted, if it had indeed happened. That was probably also true even if he was simply reusing a long-ago memory, one of himself trying to talk to any person bent upon ignoring him.

Whether Loki's memory was real or not, it was a terrible feeling to be entirely without power oneself, and for those who had it to behave as though you were unworthy of acknowledgment. From a purely practical standpoint, Loki could see no reason to antagonize or intimidate their prisoner, and so he decided not to follow the example set for him by others.

Loki paused just inside the door, holding the plastic bowl, as the Dire Wraith looked at him with an expression that probably reflected suspicion, but might in fact have been anything from murderous hatred to happy welcome-- it was so hard to tell, on a petromyzontiforme face. There was no indication the prisoner actually felt intimidated, but Loki decided to make the effort anyway.

"Hello," Loki said, as pleasantly as he could. "We thought perhaps you might be hungry. I hope you are fond of tomato sauce." He hoped the Dire Wraith could actually _eat_ tomato sauce, that he had not stumbled upon the one food that was anathema to these creatures, that he was not inadvertently taunting a hungry captive.

The Dire Wraith did not answer, merely stared at him. Loki went on, in a tone of rising good cheer,

"I apologize for the utensil. I believe it is known as a spork. We considered it a reasonable compromise between the utility of a fork and the safety of a spoon, though I hope you are not offended by our appearance of mistrust." Still nothing. Unsurprising. Loki stepped forward, placed the plastic bowl with the plastic spork on the surface of the table, and retreated toward the door.

The Dire Wraith continued to stare. It was probably supposed to be intimidating, and indeed under most circumstances it probably would have been. However, Loki had recently consumed a great many chocolate chips, in addition to finally drinking his over-sugared tea. Also, he was tired, with the cumulative result that he felt the slightest bit manic, which in turn made him feel the slightest bit like pushing his luck.

"You already know Tony Stark, of course, and I am Loki Odinson," Loki said. "It would be beneficial for us to know your name-- it will make you seem more real to us," he explained, "and therefore we will be less apt to treat you in a dehumanizing-- or, I suppose, dewraithizing-- manner." The Wraith, unsurprisingly by now, offered no reply. Loki, as though under some sort of compulsion, went on brightly, "It is certainly your right to refuse to tell us, but that being the case we will be forced to make one up for you. Have you any preference between Wilbur and Ringo?" No answer. "Tony, would you like to offer an opinion?"

"I think he looks like a Wilbur," Tony offered.

"Splendid. Wilbur it is," Loki announced. A thought occurred to him. "I have just realized that, though I know you comprehend the English language, you may find difficulty in speaking it, given the current configuration of your mouth. If you choose to converse in the Alltongue, that is also acceptable to us," he said, switching to the specified language for his final sentence, hoping Tony would not be alarmed at suddenly being unable to understand him.

The Dire Wraith suddenly rose to his feet, and Loki felt Tony come alert beside him. Speaking in the Alltongue, slushy through his lamprey-like mouth, the creature-- Wilbur-- said,

"Your pitiful efforts at sorcery will be of no protection to you. We are many, and we are coming."

In spite of the melodrama, which really should have been laughable, Loki felt a finger of apprehension slide down his spine. There actually was no telling how many of the creatures had infiltrated SHIELD already.

Shrugging off his unease, Loki smiled and, still in the Alltongue, replied,

"Well, if they are coming for dinner, let us know how many to expect." He stepped backward, Tony covering his exit.

Back in the hallway, Tony turned to him, curious. "What language were you speaking there?"

"It is called the Alltongue, a sort of _lingua franca_ across the Nine Realms, and some of those beyond," Loki explained. "I apologize for suddenly changing languages, it simply occurred to me that English might be difficult for Wilbur to speak in his current form. The Alltongue has rather different consonant sounds, and is frequently spoken by beings without lips."

"Wilbur?" Steve asked.

"Yeah, that's what we're calling him until he tells us his real name," Tony explained.

"I think we should not hold our breath," Loki added.

"I was surprised you got him to say anything," Tony confessed. "I thought he was just going to glower at us."

"He talked to you?" Mitchell asked, looking hopeful.

"Actually, I was cheerful at him until he threatened me," Loki admitted. "But it was, technically, a victory." He smiled. "I believe this makes me the good cop. That is a nice change, since when we frightened Agent Cray I am quite sure I acted as the bad cop. Although I suppose one would have to say George was the worst cop."

Tony grinned. "I'm fine with being the bad cop. And I'll have to see whether I can program Alltongue into the translation software in the suit. I miss JARVIS, I bet he's already fluent." Before Loki could ask who Jarvis was, Tony went on, "Okay. The plan was to lock up… Wilbur… which we've done. I think he's secure. So the next thing on the To Do list is: find Justin Hammer for a little talk."

Loki and Mitchell exchanged glances. Loki asked, "I believe you have already spoken of this man. Who is Justin Hammer?"

"Weapons dealer," Tony explained. "We used to be rivals. Well, not rivals, exactly, that implies a degree of equality between me and the nitwit. The point is, spy devices made by Hammer Industries were found in Nick Fury's place, and that inhibitor they used on Strange might have been built by Hammer off my design. If Hammer's in on this, we can probably get him to tell us something."

"Why would he talk to you, if he's your rival?" Mitchell asked.

Tony grinned. "Because he's not smart, and he doesn't know when to shut up. I'm pretty sure I can get something out of him."

"And if he too has been replaced by a shapeshifter, _he_ may get something out of _you_ ," Loki replied, tapping his temple significantly.

That slowed Tony down, but only for a moment. "Okay, Steve can come with me."

"Steve cannot tell if someone is a shapeshifter until they actually shift shape," Loki argued, aware that he sounded as though he was constructing a tongue-twister for children, but wanting to be as clear as possible. "Steve and Mitchell can watch over Wilbur. You and I will go find this Hammer, and have a word with him."

Tony frowned, considering, and then apparently realized Loki was making sense. "All right. But stick close. One close call in twenty-four hours is enough."

Loki smiled. "I could not agree more."

~oOo~

Afterward, Loki decided he and Tony Stark must have been born under the same star, or some such nonsense, because not only was neither one of them capable of staying out of trouble, the two of them together seemed to positively attract it.

Not that it necessarily looked like trouble to begin with. Indeed, they had the great good luck of arriving at Hammer Industries at the exact moment Justin Hammer was exiting the parking garage-- a moment later and they would have missed him. Tony turned out to be adept at "tailing" another vehicle, and so fell in behind, a car-length back, inconspicuous in the darkness.

"Although Hammer's so oblivious he probably wouldn't notice if we climbed into his back seat," Tony muttered.

"You may be underestimating him," Loki was replying, when Hammer used his turn indicator and pulled up before a brownstone apartment building. Tony drove past, found a parking spot of his own, and pulled in as Loki peered avidly through the rear window to see where Hammer was going. Tony loosened his seatbelt and turned to look as well.

Hammer stayed in his car. A moment later, Maria Hill walked out, wearing an attractive gray suit with a short skirt, and got into the passenger side. Loki's night vision was excellent, and he was quite sure that as Hill settled herself, Hammer leaned over to kiss her.

"Whoa!" Tony exclaimed, ducking as though the occupants of the other car could see him. "I wasn't expecting _that._ "

"Wasn't expecting what?" Loki whispered.

"Hammer. Macking on a hideous shapeshifter. Ew."

"Her current form is not that of a hideous shapeshifter," Loki pointed out, mostly to be contrary.

"Yeah? Would _you_ kiss her?" Tony demanded.

Loki grinned. "I would rather have my lips sewn together again. Quick, Tony, his car is moving!"

Tony pulled back into traffic and discreetly followed-- perhaps assisted by the license plate on his rival's vehicle, which instead of what appeared to be the usual collection of random numbers and letters, read HAMRTIME. Tony had uttered a snort of derision at the sight of the plate, but Loki decided to wait until later to ask him why.

Hammer drove a considerable distance, out of the city and into the countryside, then into a much smaller community. He finally parked his car in the lot belonging to an eating establishment, and he and Hill went inside.

"What are they _doing?_ " Tony muttered. The question was probably rhetorical, but Loki felt compelled to respond:

"I believe in your culture, it is referred to as a 'date.'" Tony glowered, and Loki relented: "Of course, the question is whether this is part of the nefarious scheme."

"I'd say so, wouldn't you?" Tony hissed. "I mean, did Wilbur strike you as the type to have a romantic interest in a human?"

"Perhaps tastes differ even within the species," Loki argued, but only because he could not help himself. He was beginning to wish he had some more chocolate chips, because he suddenly felt rather tired and not entirely clear in his head. "What do you suggest we do? We cannot exactly walk in there and pretend to be on a date of our own. We, or at any rate you, would be recognized."

Tony was opening his car door. "Come on. Let's see if we can get in through the kitchen or something. Just to see if they're meeting someone." He reached into the back of the car and retrieved the briefcase that held his portable Iron Man suit.

"Tony, I hardly think arriving as Iron Man is a good-- "

"Just for emergencies. Come on," Tony urged as he walked toward the back of the building. Loki rolled his eyes, which of course could not be seen in the dark, and followed.

"Tony, stop and think for a moment," Loki pleaded, beginning to realize with some alarm that, even without chocolate chips, he seemed to be the one being reasonable. Surely that was someone else's role? "How will we even explain our presence back here? Or in the kitchen, for that matter?"

Tony considered. "Health inspectors," he decided. "You can put a spell on the staff so they think my driver's license is a-- holy shit, Loki, look out!"

Loki spun around just as a Dire Wraith, in an attractive gray suit with a short skirt, grabbed for his neck. Apparently, Tony's job of "tailing" had not been as undetectable as he had thought. Or, of course, the Dire Wraith was more perceptive than Justin Hammer.

Loki twisted in the Wraith's grasp, aware he did not at the moment possess enough magic to drain the creature as he had Wilbur, but sure he was capable of escaping by more pedestrian means. What he would do when he got out of range of the drill-tongue-- well, he would think about that in a moment.

As it developed, he did not have to, because suddenly Tony was in the edge of Loki's vision, unable to suit up fast enough to assist him as Iron Man and therefore swinging the heavy metal briefcase as hard as he could at the head of the Wraith.

Who crumpled under the blow-- and then disintegrated, leaving behind only the attractive gray suit, the short skirt, shoes, and presumably some undergarments.

Loki stared at the empty clothing, wide-eyed. "You killed her!"

"I didn't mean to! I had to! She was going to suck out your brain!"

Loki looked up, unable to explain why he was so distraught. "You weren't supposed to _kill her._ " He dragged his hands backward through his hair, forced himself to calm down. It was not as though _Loki_ had never killed anyone before, and besides, Tony was right, there had been little alternative. And anyway, he had not done it on purpose. And the Dire Wraith had seemed quite intent on killing one or both of them herself. Himself. Whatever.

But there was no time to bicker and argue about who killed who: they now had another problem because, of course, Justin Hammer would be wondering where his dinner companion had gone, and would soon raise a hue and cry.

There was only one thing to do. Loki scooped up the empty clothing, magicked away a little dirt, a rip, and the last traces of Dire Wraith, then ducked behind a nearby Dumpster. Tony, following him, looked puzzled as he realized Loki had shed his suit jacket and necktie. Understanding dawned as Loki began to rapidly unbutton his white shirt.

"Loki, you're not planning to do what I think you're planning to do, are you?"

"I fail to see any other way to salvage the situation," Loki snapped.

"Oh no, you don't. Thor will _kill me._ And I'm pretty sure not in what he calls the 'playful Midgardian sense.' Loki, put your shirt back on and let's talk about this."

"Can't. No time. Turn around," Loki replied as he kicked off his shoes. Tony hesitated. Loki unfastened his trousers and, through his teeth, ground out, "Turn around, or I swear I will transform you into a mole, or some other small and very nearsighted creature." Loki was aware his sudden attack of modesty was ridiculous, but so were Tony's qualms.

Resolutely, Tony shook his head. "I'm not going to explain to Thor that I let his little brother turn into his little _sister_ and go off with-- "

"An idiot, remember?" Loki reminded him. "You were quite clear about his mental capacities. Surely you do not think I cannot handle an idiot?"

"It's not that," Tony protested, but was unable to be more articulate. He spluttered a moment and then managed, "You're… you're going to turn into a woman!"

"Yes! You have seen me turn into an _otter!_ " Loki argued, trying not to think about the fact he was down to his undergarments. He folded his arms across his chest, feeling rather chilly and extremely stupid.

"A _male_ otter!"

"Did you _check?_ " Once again, Loki reflected that he would never, ever understand humans.

"Well, no, but…"

Loki suddenly realized what Tony was babbling about. "Tony, are you… Do you fear for my virtue? Because if so, I should assure you, I have not been virtuous for _centuries._ "

That was… not a lie, precisely, what with the patricide, fratricide, regicide, genocide, and assorted miscellaneous betrayals and treacheries Loki had committed. Mostly, of course, within an extremely restricted time frame, he did not consider himself to be what the humans called a _career criminal_ , but even so, he certainly could not be regarded as a morally upright being. And besides, he had spent most of his life before his outburst in such a stew of bitterness, loneliness, self-pity, and jealousy that virtue by nearly any definition must have long since perished.

The only sense in which his statement could be considered a lie was actually the one to which Tony referred, because one of the side effects of the bitterness, loneliness, self-pity et cetera, to say nothing of self-hatred so deeply ingrained that, he now realized, he had been sure everyone else hated him as much as he did himself… well, these factors had been a considerable barrier to commission of the usual sins of the flesh, which require a partner. In fact, Loki reflected, he appeared to have committed all the sins he could think of, except for the harmless ones.

And he would have his brain sucked out by Dire Wraiths before he ever admitted as much to Tony Stark. To say nothing of the fact such a conversation would probably get around to Annie at some point, and... No. Not up for discussion.

Loki glared at the other man, made a noise of impatient command he only later realized sounded _exactly_ like his father, and when Tony finally gave in and turned around he hastily transformed himself into Maria Hill, thanking everything he could think of that he had gotten a sufficiently good look at her as she left her apartment building. Then he shed the last of his male clothing and, in great haste, began to dress in Hill's. He was forced to make certain adjustments to his imitation of Hill in deference to her garments, some of which were puzzling enough that he wished he could ask Tony to lend his assistance, but both his own embarrassment and the thought of Tony's head popping right off his shoulders prevented him.

The best thing about this transformation, Loki decided, was the fact that switching from one sex to another within the same species (all right, Maria Hill was human, and Loki was technically not Aesir, but they _looked_ like members of the same species, and Loki was not troubled with details regarding kidneys or spleen) was far less taxing than turning into a bird or a quadruped.

The worst thing about it bid fair to be the shoes, with their pointed toes and high heels. Perhaps the Dire Wraith impersonating Hill had not been evil at all, before being compelled to wear the shoes.

Loki raised his hands to his hair, or rather to Maria Hill's hair, and ensured it was pinned in place. It struck him that it was probably a trifle messy. It also struck him that Justin Hammer would probably appreciate it that way.

"You may turn around," Loki announced, and was, as always, startled to hear himself speak in the voice of another.

"You're decent?" Tony asked, shoulders stiff in uncharacteristic embarrassment.

"That is a matter for debate, but I am clothed," Loki replied. "Go back to the car. I will learn what I can." As he strode away in the thrice-accursed shoes, Tony called after him.

"How are you going to get out of there after?"

"I will think of something," Loki assured him, without looking back.

~oOo~

Hammer looked up with a smile as Loki walked back into the restaurant. He was, Loki realized, relieved that he-- she-- had returned. The expression told Loki a surprisingly complete story of rejection and loneliness and _not fitting in,_ and--

 _No, no, no_. Loki was _not_ going to feel sorry for Justin Hammer. He did not have _time_ for that.

"Made your call?" Hammer asked, as Loki approached the table. He practically leaped to his feet, pulling out the appropriate chair in an awkward parody of chivalrous behaviour. Loki refused to feel sorry for him, but he turned on a bright smile as he settled Maria Hill's body in the chair.

"I did, thank you. All dealt with. Now, where were we?" Loki turned toward Hammer, leaned forward a little. He had, perhaps, neglected to fasten the top two buttons of Maria Hill's blouse, and it was apparent that Justin Hammer noticed. Loki was not the world's most subtle seductress, but he had a feeling Hammer would not complain about his technique, and Loki had no qualms about using his feminine wiles-- or, to be accurate, someone else's feminine wiles-- to get what he wanted.

Hammer began to talk, and before long Loki realized his most pressing worry was not going to be a problem: he had feared that, since he and Hammer were undoubtedly co-conspirators, it would prove difficult to coax information out of Hammer that he, Maria Hill, should already have known.

Instead, Hammer turned out to be the kind of man who talks to attractive women-- probably all women, actually-- as though they could not possibly possess any intelligence, and must have everything explained to them, including their own role in a nefarious plot they had probably brought Hammer into in the first place. In the back of Loki's mind, he imagined Annie's expression of increasingly-desperate courtesy as she tried to find a route of escape. Pepper Potts's calm disdain as she excused herself.

Natasha Romanov and Sif's looks of satisfaction as they disemboweled him...

Truly, after a few minutes Loki actually had to remind himself that he _wanted_ to gather the information Hammer was giving him so freely, because his overriding urge was to hit Hammer with one of his shoes and bolt from the restaurant. It was all he could do not to do up the top two buttons on Maria Hill's blouse. Paradoxically, he felt sorrier for Hammer than ever, but at the same time he also wanted to transform the man into a bowl of soup, and send him back to the kitchen.

Which was simply ungrateful of him, since Hammer was being so extraordinarily cooperative about bleating out useful details of the scheme.

"They've moved all the prisoners to headquarters, so they'll be nice and handy if they're needed," Hammer was saying. Loki could just imagine in what form they might be _needed._ "After we're finished eating, we'll go there to meet with Schmidt and get briefed on the final plan."

"Nick Fury is being held at that location?" Loki asked, wriggling a little closer in his chair, on the theory this would probably distract Hammer from wondering about the question.

"Yes, he should have been transferred there today," Hammer replied, and then gave a roguish grin. "Why? You don't want to see him, do you? Maybe rub it in a little?"

Loki gave a girlish giggle-- surely that was going too far, was too much, but no, Hammer seemed entirely smitten-- and twirled the stem of his wineglass. (He was not drinking the contents, because though adrenaline had cleared his head it seemed foolhardy to risk fogging himself up again.)

"Perhaps," he cooed, and in the back of his mind he was not sure whether he wanted to laugh hysterically at himself, or vomit. Possibly both. Later. With a tiny frown that suggested ladylike confusion over big manly ideas (and he could only imagine how hard Sif would smite him and Hammer both, if she saw it-- even Annie would rightfully punch him in the kidney) Loki asked, "And the monster? The… blue thing…?"

Again, that had to be too much, surely even this cretin would realize the _director of SHIELD_ would know the name of the being _her agency_ had imprisoned on behalf of this Schmidt--

But again, no. Hammer smiled indulgently, poured a little more red wine into Loki's glass, and explained kindly,

"Frost Giants. They've also been moved to the new location."

 _They?_

"I think I would like to see them again, too," Loki remarked, playing with the wineglass, and giving an artistic little shiver. "I can never remember their names-- "

"Byleistr and Helblindi," Hammer recited, making a hash of the pronunciation. Loki pouted and nodded and thought hard.

The Jotun king, and the trusted old councilor of whom Volstagg had spoken. And of course that made sense, because the old Jotun would have known there was something wrong with the king, would have had to be replaced, too. If _both_ Byleistr and Helblindi were seen to be taking the same hard line, perhaps the rest of the council was being pushed along by them. Having no one to go to for advice on how to calm the king's sudden battle-lust, the Jotun council was probably bewildered, unsure how to correct the situation, aware of impending disaster but powerless to stop it…

Someone was going to be destroyed by fire before all this was over, Loki promised himself, and smiled at Justin Hammer.

Who was saying incautiously, "Hydra will be grateful to both of us for helping them dismantle SHIELD. We'll be rewarded with positions in the new order." He reached out to touch the lip of his wineglass to Loki's.

Loki, meanwhile, was wondering whether this moron had ever _watched a movie_. Did he not _know_ the fate of those who betrayed their friends to join the bad guys? Did he not realize they never, ever survived the final scene? That they were in fact generally killed by their new masters, once their usefulness had been outlived? What kind of an idiot expected _gratitude_ from a supervillain?

Hydra was in league with the Dire Wraiths, which meant that Maria Hill was safe, at least until Hydra and the Wraiths inevitably turned on each other. This would protect Loki at least until Hydra spotted his deception, which could be instantaneously or might take time: it all depended on whether Hydra included any magic users, and whether they sensed magic in the same way Loki did. If he smelled wrong in the meeting, he was done for. If they did not spot his deception and he was able to bluff, he might get out of there safely and be able to take his story back to the Avengers. Regardless, Tony would be following their car, would find the Hydra base, and would rally the troops, as it were. It did not really matter whether Loki was found out or not, not in the long run.

But it was obvious Justin Hammer needed to be saved from his own folly, and nobody but Loki was in a position to do so. _Damn._

Hammer consulted his watch and snapped his fingers at the waiter, which was nearly enough to make Loki rethink his decision to protect him. "Check, please," Hammer said dismissively to the young man who, if he had an ounce of spirit, had probably spat in their food-- Loki was suddenly glad he had not eaten anything on his plate-- and then he turned to Loki in a masterful manner. "Time we were going. Schmidt wouldn't like us to be late."

"Of course not," Loki agreed, and rose, taking care to give Hammer an eyeful of Maria Hill's cleavage (by now he felt like he owed Hill an apology, once all this was over) and preceded him out the door. He was certain Hammer's eyes were not drawn to the back of his head.

As they walked to the car, Loki glanced inconspicuously around to make sure Tony was still waiting in his own car. He was.

Hammer opened the passenger-side door and Loki got in, making full use of the short skirt as he did so, to ensure Hammer did not notice the other car start up and follow them out of the lot.

"Okay," Hammer said, voice tense and overeager, clearly not as confident as he wanted to pretend. "We're off to see the big guy."

"I can hardly wait," Loki purred, and glanced in his side-view mirror to make sure Tony's car was following them. It was. Hammer did not notice.

Loki eased his feet a little way out of the horrible shoes, and began to think of contingency plans.


	17. Chapter 17

Loki could only hope Tony was able to keep Hammer's car within sight, because he did not dare check to see whether the headlights back in the distance belonged to Tony's vehicle. He, as Maria Hill, was fully occupied with keeping Hammer distracted enough to be oblivious to the possibility they were being followed.

This was not, to be honest, the most difficult task Loki had ever been assigned. It appeared Tony was correct when he suggested Hammer would not notice Tony climbing into the back seat--figuratively speaking, anyway, since the low-slung little car only possessed only two front seats. This limited its utility for the procurement of groceries or the transportation of friends-- which in turn suggested that perhaps Hammer had so few friends as to have no need of a vehicle capable of accommodating them. Perhaps he had actually chosen this car to avoid the reminder.

Loki was _not_ supposed to be feeling sorry for Hammer.

One thing this car did have, that Mitchell's back in Bristol did not, was an extremely loud sound system, which Hammer used to play a song about a magic carpet ride and which nearly dispensed with the need for conversation. This permitted Loki to concentrate on, as it were, non-verbals means of distraction, most of which involved Maria Hill's short skirt, and Maria Hill's legs. This proved efficacious even in the relative dark of the motorway. Loki definitely owed Maria Hill an apology for his misuse of her physical form, but he was very grateful to her for her legs.

Hammer turned down a song about one who was born, born to be wild as they turned off the main road and onto a graveled lane that wound through heavy forest. They drove for, perhaps, half a league before coming to a gate in a high fence topped with barbed wire. Hammer stopped his car and waited as a guard approached, one wearing a uniform with a stylized "H" on the breast, surmounted by the octopus-like symbol Loki had seen on the paper stolen from the false Byleistr, back on Vanaheim.

The guard's expression was impassive and watchful, but at least Loki could see it, for unlike the guards at SHIELD headquarters, he did not wear a darkened mask over his face. Sworn to evil he might be, but human for all that, and therefore not invulnerable.

The guard identified Hammer and his passenger as beings permitted to pass through the gate, and they drove a further league until they had reached a large house, probably once a country retreat for some wealthy family. The house had been converted into what amounted to a fortress, and further human guards waited to convey Hammer and Loki inside. There was a splendid foyer with a floor of marble tile, and a great staircase sweeping up to the next floor. The guards escorted them past the staircase, into what was undoubtedly once a library at the back of the house, curtains drawn across large windows that were probably now impregnable anyway.

There was a long council table in the middle of the room. Loki and Hammer were directed to inconspicuous places at what appeared to be the foot of it. Loki, dropping all girlish mannerisms, was not at all averse to quietly taking the place offered him, but he could tell Hammer was offended. Loki just hoped the idiot would keep his mouth shut, because in his experience (which, in this specific context, it must be confessed was less actual "experience" as such and more "exposure to the movies of Mr. James Bond") an underling who spoke out of turn at such a meeting could probably count on coming to an abrupt and messy end at the hands of the supervillain of record. Hammer was a mere henchman, whether he realized it or not, and Loki hoped he had the common sense to hench, at least for the present.

If he did not, Loki was going to have to decide between possibly tipping his own hand to protect him, and living with the guilt of not doing so. Neither option was particularly appealing.

The man who occupied what was obviously the head of the table looked as though he would have little compunction about executing any number of inefficient or obstreperous lackeys. His eyes were pale and cold above high cheekbones, gray-streaked hair slicked back as tightly as Loki had once kept his own. In Loki's case, the hair had probably reflected his efforts to appear in control of his immediate environment. In the case of this man, Loki rather suspected the element of desperation was absent. He looked more like an occasion of desperation in others. He diffused a scent of old carpets and moldy, ancient books, like a library of evil.

Loki, as Maria Hill, was the only woman at the table. In addition, as far as he could tell, he was aside from the man with the pale eyes the only non-human. No one else smelled of magic, which at least cut down on the number of those who might be able to identify Loki as a fraud.

The other five men present all wore gray uniforms, of an excessively sleek and militaristic cut, with high collared jackets bearing the octopus-like emblem at the throat. They reminded Loki of something, but it took him a moment to think of the history books he had read at the public library, shortly after his first adventure with the Avengers, when he had wanted to learn about the war in which Steve Rogers fought. Steve had been on the same side as the United Kingdom, and there had been soldiers on the opposing side who had worn uniforms similar to these gray ones. It turned out that Loki had lived on Midgard for long enough, and was either reformed or hypocritical enough, to be seriously disturbed by what he read about the activities of those soldiers-- at least the stories of Ragnarok, frightening though they were, had been fiction.

Even if he had not already known Hydra's intentions were, to say the least, impure, Loki would have suspected as much just on the strength of the gray uniforms.

The pale-eyed man, who was obviously the Schmidt of whom Hammer had spoken, looked around the table when the guard had withdrawn.

"Now that Mr. Hammer and Ms. Hill have joined us, we may begin our discussion of the details of what I have decided to call Operation Overlord. The assault will begin ten days from today, in the cities in which SHIELD has major headquarters." He looked at each of the gray-uniformed men in turn: "New York... London... Moscow... Brasilia... Tokyo. " Turning to Loki, he said, "The first order of business will be for your Wraiths to neutralize any resistance by SHIELD. I believe I can count upon you to show no mercy." Loki inclined his head in agreement.

Schmidt addressed the men in uniform: "When you receive the signal, your troops will first secure the SHIELD facility in your city, and then use it as a base of operations for the attack on the city itself." He smiled unpleasantly. "For purposes of our communications, the cities will be designated as follows: Sword. Gold. Omaha. Utah. Juno." He looked at each of his commanders in turn, received their nods.

Loki possessed what the humans would call an excellent poker face: it had been vital, living for centuries in what he had always felt to be a hostile, not to say positively dangerous, environment. It was a fortunate skill to have because, with his reading fresh in his mind, Loki was able to see the significance in the code names Schmidt was using. Behind an impassive face, he entertained the thought that not only was Steve going to be wild with rage when he heard them, it was extremely likely the assault on London, at least, would be repelled by infuriated pensioners wearing their old medals.

No, it would not, Loki conceded sadly, behind his calm face. Steve, however...

"Oh, hey," Justin Hammer spoke up, a second before Loki, whose hands were folded demurely in Maria Hill's lap, was able to squeeze his thigh in warning.

Schmidt's pale eyes turned toward the foot of the table.

"Yes, Mr. Hammer?" he asked, his tone calm, polite. Even Justin Hammer, who had the brains of a haddock, was capable of realizing it would be a mistake to speak further. Unfortunately, having engaged his mouth, he seemed unable to stop himself before delivering the words he intended:

"It's just that... those names are pretty significant. Kind of... loaded, you know?"

Schmidt rose to his feet. In the back of his mind, Loki was slightly surprised at just how tall he was: taller than Loki in his usual form, possibly even taller than Thor. Then he realized it was an illusion, intended to intimidate. It worked: Hammer shrank in his own seat.

"Yes, Mr. Hammer, I know," Schmidt said hoarsely, his accent changing as he did so. Previously, he had spoken in a vaguely American voice, with no recognizable regional signature. Now he was falling into a more guttural accent, as much to alarm his audience as in self-revelation.

Loki deliberately sat very still, head raised, like the uniformed men, as though confident their leader's displeasure would not be visited upon them. Loki could feel assurance in each of the uniformed commanders, which meant they, in their way, were just as stupid as Hammer, or at the very least devoid of imagination. These men were replaceable parts, nothing more.

Schmidt went on, "I know the origins of these names, know the tale of failure represented by each. Had my counsel been available, the stories would have been very different." He leaned forward, and Hammer shrank still further in his seat. Loki, whose sense of humour was sometimes described as odd-- or worse-- found himself suppressing a rogue urge to laugh at the realization Hammer was apparently willing to throw in his lot with a supervillain clearly bent on world domination, but not with a Nazi. He could not decide whether that was a point in Hammer's favour, or merely further evidence of the depths of his stupid folly. Did he think world domination was to be accomplished by kindly, democratic means?

Schmidt was still speaking:

"It is time for wrongs to be redressed, for power to be placed in hands that deserve to wield it. And you object? A merchant? A _tradesman?"_ Schmidt's flaring rage seemed to be building to a crescendo, though the very suddenness of the explosion suggested it was more for effect than born of true anger. "What are you, to quarrel with _me?"_

And, as he spoke, Schmidt reached up to his own face, fingers finding purchase at the corner of his jaw. Loki, aware as he was that Schmidt was not human, schooled himself to remain impassive, whatever was revealed.

Actually, Loki had seen much worse: the top layer of flesh peeled easily away, skin and hair and all, revealing the skull underneath clothed only in a layer of shining-red, bloody tissue. Disturbing, but hardly the most horrifying thing Loki had ever seen. Given the emblem of the organization, Loki had confidently expected tentacles.

Hammer, however, was completely taken aback, uttered a high-pitched cry guaranteed to alert every predator within miles that dinner had been served. Schmidt, who had somehow retained his lips, sneered at his former henchman as he said,

"Your weapons will be of use to us, but you are no longer necessary. I doubt you will find much to feed upon, but you may feel free to begin now."

It took Loki a split-second to realize the second sentence was addressed to him, or rather to Maria Hill, or rather to the Dire Wraith impersonating Maria Hill.

Loki was willing to go to a certain amount of inconvenience to maintain a transformation: headaches and giddiness afterward were common coin to him on this realm, and he was currently putting up with the discomfort of the undergarment binding his chest, in addition to the horror of the shoes.

However, he absolutely drew the line at adding a second layer of transformation on top of the first, in the form of a second shape-shift directly to Dire Wraith. To say nothing of having no desire whatsoever to feast upon whatever brains this poor stupid human possessed.

It also occurred to him that, unlike the five gray-uniformed and utterly replaceable humans, Loki was the spokescreature for Schmidt's Dire Wraith allies. This, he realized, gave him a certain amount of power in this situation, since Schmidt could not afford to betray these allies until after their plan had succeeded. That betrayal was planned, he had no doubt-- indeed, he was equally sure the Wraiths intended a betrayal of their own, and had there not been so many innocent bystanders whose lives were at stake, it might have been amusing to see what happened when the two sides turned upon one another.

Not amusing enough to let the plan succeed, obviously, Loki amended mentally. For the moment, even apart from the fact he had claimed responsibility for protecting this foolish, would-be-evil human, Loki felt it made sense for the representative of the Dire Wraiths to assert herself, to behave as something more independent and powerful than a mere minion:

"I will certainly claim that right, after our plan has succeeded. However, as you yourself have pointed out, Hammer's weapons are necessary to the successful completion of the mission. The Avengers have been successfully alienated from SHIELD, and so their intervention has been critically delayed. We will be ready for them, but may need further armament to hold them off. To say nothing of the one known as War Machine, who remains in direct contact with SHIELD, and may be called upon by his colleagues for help when our attack begins."

"You can direct him to join the assault," Schmidt replied.

Loki shrugged, not bothering to add any coy mannerisms or call attention to Maria Hill's personal attributes. "In spite of his _nom de guerre,_ War Machine is a man, and an officer. He is a 'good company man,' but retains personal responsibility for his actions, and will not join a scheme so contrary to his own ethics and the oaths he has sworn. He will need to be dealt with, and further weaponry from Hammer Industries will probably be necessary to do so. We may need to call upon his knowledge of his own armoury before this ends." Schmidt's pale eyes locked onto Loki's, and Loki was glad his new role permitted him to stare back like an equal. "Keep Hammer with the other prisoners. I will arrange for a replacement, to avoid curiosity among his employees. And friends," Loki added, generously he thought, considering the evidence of the two-seat car.

Schmidt looked as thoughtful as his current deficiency in the area of facial muscles permitted. "Very well. We will keep him alive for the moment. I will have him taken to the cells." He turned to the door, presumably to call for a guard.

Loki pushed back his chair and rose. "It would be most unfortunate for him to have... an accident... on his way. You will permit me to accompany him?" It was not really a request, and Schmidt clearly recognized it as a statement of the independence of the Dire Wraiths. Equally clearly, he did not like it. However, this was not the time for him to wreak vengeance upon his allies, and he and Loki both knew it.

"Very well," Schmidt agreed, with smooth good grace that might have fooled a liar less accomplished than Loki. Loki, for his part, easily read a buried promise of violence and personal retribution, but since that went without saying-- whatever he was, Schmidt was not one to _share_ his playthings, any more than Loki believed the Wraiths would-- he did not consider it made much difference in the long run.

Loki smiled, with an equally spurious air of good fellowship, and when the guard arrived to collect the now-gibbering Justin Hammer, he steeled himself against the discomfort in his feet and strode calmly from the room in their company.

He regretted his inability to utter any words of reassurance to Hammer while in the presence of the guard, but reminded himself that if he, Loki Odinson, had anything to say in the matter, no harm would come to the poor fool anyway. And it might be beneficial, to leave him stewing in the awareness of his own folly, at least for a little while. If even _Loki_ could come to an understanding of the evil for which he had been responsible, after centuries of festering had worn away whatever good qualities he had ever possessed, surely the same was possible for this ridiculous little man who could only have been wallowing in evil for a couple of decades, at most?

The cells were below-ground, in cellars most efficiently converted to a dungeon. As he accompanied the guard, Loki reached out with his mind, feeling for the occupants. Here was an infuriated magic user, powers badly sapped and mind becoming clouded by exhaustion and pain. Here was an utterly terrified human, no longer even able to think in a linear fashion. Here was another human, also frightened but trying to marshal her wits to find a solution to her dilemma. Another magic user, female, rather less powerful than the first, equally angry, but more clear in her mind, possibly concealing her magic and hoping to turn that into an advantage.

Here was an ancient, patient, alien intelligence, waiting for an opportunity to strike for freedom, aware of having time. Here was another, not quite so old or so patient, but of the same type.

Here was... Nick Fury.

Fortunately, the guard was concentrating on Hammer, did not see how their companion broke stride as they passed the cell containing the former director of SHIELD. Of all of the prisoners, Fury was the one for whom Loki felt the most personal concern. He wished Fury was capable of receiving a thought-message, wished he could assure the man he was not forsaken, that his friends were active, were working to liberate him. He thought Nick Fury would not be at all pleased at the idea of needing to be rescued, but speaking as someone who normally would feel the same way, Loki was ready to assure him that he would indeed recover from the shame.

Loki saw Hammer pushed into a cell, the door closing on pleas and threats, cast his mind around once more to remind himself of the occupants: Strange. Stern. Hill. The other magic user might be the wife of Dr. Strange, he thought someone had referred to her, and there had to be a reason she had not raised the alarm when he disappeared. Helblindi. Byleistr. Fury. Hammer. All securely locked up by mortar and magic, and all waiting to be rescued.

Then he followed the guard back up to the main floor, to rejoin Schmidt and his vassals.

~oOo~

The meeting had been less strenuous than Loki had any right to expect: since it appeared Schmidt was unable to sense variations in magic, all that had been required of Loki was sustained efforts in the area of lying. Not exactly a problem. And it appeared Schmidt was in the habit of allowing the Dire Wraiths to carry out their end of the scheme without interference-- Loki assumed that was because he intended to do all his interfering at once, in deadly terms, but as far as he could tell his deception had gone undiscovered so far, and he was to be allowed to leave unmolested.

The major difficulty, as far as Loki was concerned, came with the realization he was supposed to leave the premises in Justin Hammer's low-slung little car, to turn it over to whatever Dire Wraith would be taking the arms dealer's place. It was not that Loki was unable to drive a car: Mitchell had patiently taught him how, back in Bristol. Indeed, Loki was now licensed to drive an automobile in the United Kingdom-- admittedly, he had needed to place a small glamour upon the driving examiner, but that was more to ensure the acceptance of his magically-procured supporting documents than because of any deficiencies in his actual driving abilities.

The trouble now was not merely that the control mechanisms were all disorientingly located on the wrong side of the car. That at least made sense, considering all driving in this country was done on what Loki could only view as the wrong side of the road. No, what alarmed Loki was the additional and far more confusing matter of the foot pedals.

It was Loki's understanding that a car was supposed to possess three pedals: one to make it go forward, one to make it stop, and one to enable the driver to change gears. That was, at least, how Mitchell's car worked. Justin Hammer's two-seater only possessed two. Loki had not ridden in many cars aside from Mitchell's, at least not while fully conscious, and he could not recall ever encountering anything like this before.

Well, there had to be a simple explanation: Justin Hammer was nothing like as intelligent as Mitchell or George, both of whom could operate the car in Bristol. Therefore, Loki considered, this must be a car that could be driven by one of lesser acumen. Which meant it would be extremely embarrassing if Loki was unable to figure out the trick. Cursing his earlier failure to pay much attention to how Hammer managed to drive this ridiculous vehicle, Loki now considered the pedals. There was one that resembled the going-forward pedal in the Bristol car, and it did not seem reasonable for a car to lack a stopping pedal. Therefore, the missing pedal had to be the one that enabled the driver to change gears.

That being the case, Loki considered the lever that approximated a shifting mechanism. A proper car was supposed to have numbered gears, and the lever moved forward, backward, and from side to side in a pattern that enabled the driver to specify which gear he wanted.

This one seemed to move only forward and back, and was lettered. The lever was in a position marked with a P, which after some thought Loki tentatively decided must mean "stopped," since the word had Ps in it. An S would make more sense, but it was unreasonable to expect sense of a car that did not even have a shifting-gears pedal in the first place. He noted a position marked R, which in a proper car meant "reverse." On further consideration, it occurred to Loki that perhaps this car only possessed gears for going backward-- R-- and for driving forward, which should be marked with an F for forward but was not. Perhaps the D meant "driving," Loki decided. This also was not sensible, since surely going backwards also counted as driving, but it was the best guess he could make.

Well, he could not sit here all night. Shoulders tight with apprehension, Loki put Justin Hammer's key in the ignition and turned it. The engine started immediately, and after a little fumbling, Loki was able to coax the lever into the position marked R. Pleased to find he had guessed correctly, Loki backed the car cautiously, turning it as he did so, then held his breath and pushed the lever into the position marked D.

The car began to move forward, and Loki felt like cheering. Instead, he maintained an air of calm as he drove out the open gate and up the lane toward the motorway. The little car showed a tendency to want to take off on him, like an overly-energetic horse, and the lack of a proper shifting lever or pedal rendered it difficult to reason with. All the same, he made it to the main road, turned from gravel onto asphalt, cautiously positioned himself on the appropriate side of the centre line, and drove away.

Before very long he was aware of headlights in his rearview mirror and realized Tony was following him. Deeply relieved, Loki found a store, closed at this hour, and drove into its parking lot. Aware that Tony would be expecting Hammer to still be driving, Loki turned off the ignition and scrambled ungracefully out of the little car. As soon as Tony realized Loki was alone, he got out of his own car and walked forward to meet him.

"Where's Hammer?" Tony asked.

"Taken prisoner," Loki replied. "We need to do something about his car, and then I can explain things to you."

"Sure," Tony agreed. "Let's just take the plate off and leave it here." He stuck his hand in his pocket and brought out a red-handled folding knife. "I need to give this back to Coulson, but in the meantime-- "

Tony removed the number plate, then suggested they move the car to the back of the lot. Loki handed over the keys. "I would prefer not to drive it again. I find it confusing," he confessed.

"Can't drive a stick?" Tony inquired, his tone teasing.

"Apparently not," Loki replied, having no idea what Tony was talking about.

Tony looked into the vehicle and began to laugh. "It's an automatic. You're not telling me you can't drive an _automatic?"_

"Whatever it is, I am used to something else," Loki replied stiffly. "Now, will you please do whatever it is you are planning to do and let us get out of here?"

Tony grinned, but said only, "I'm not a fan of automatics, myself. Get in the car, I'll be right with you."

Loki sat in the passenger seat, kicked off the horrible shoes, and waited for Tony to return. When they were back on the road, Loki asked,

"Where are my clothes?"

"Your what?" Tony asked, as if Loki had not spoken clearly. Loki was visited with a nasty suspicion.

"My clothing, Tony. You remember, the garments I wore earlier this evening, when I was male? You did remember to bring them?"

"Um. Well, now that you mention it-- " Tony stammered. He kept his eyes on the road, pretended he could not feel Loki's gaze singeing the side of his head.

"Are you telling me I am stuck in this form until we get back to the Tower?" Loki demanded.

"I don't see what your clothes have to do with it-- " Tony argued.

"You try wearing these undergarments as a man, and tell me my clothes have nothing to do with it," Loki snarled. To say nothing of the fact that his usual form was a great deal larger than Maria Hill's, which would have unfortunate results for the attractive gray suit and possibly make him look like Bruce Banner after a rage incident. All things considered, Loki preferred to feel uncomfortable, rather than feel uncomfortable and also look ridiculous.

He did not speak of the shoes, because even as a woman Loki had no intention of putting his feet back into them. It was lucky for Tony that he was driving, otherwise he might indeed have found himself transformed into a mole.

Tony cast Loki a sideways look. "Um, you going to tell me what happened?"

Loki wiggled in his seat as he tugged Maria Hill's short skirt to cover as much of Maria Hill's legs as possible. "I was, but now I think I will wait until we arrive at the Tower and I can change back into myself." He was quite aware he sounded sulky. He _felt_ sulky, thank you very much.

"Couldn't you just magic the clothes into something else?" Tony suggested.

"I could," Loki agreed. "It takes a great deal of magic, to turn an inanimate object into something else and hold it that way, so I would still be unable to concentrate on my story, but I could do it."

"Or maybe you could-- " Tony began.

"Unless you are about to offer to lend me your trousers, I would advise you to shut up and drive," Loki suggested grimly.

Tony shut up and drove.

It might have been wiser for Tony to enter the apartment in advance, to ensure everyone understood the situation, because when Loki walked in disguised as Maria Hill he discovered the Avengers, or at any rate Natasha and Clint, had indeed assembled, and they were not particularly happy to see her.

"What the hell is she doing-- ?" Clint Barton demanded, stepping forward aggressively enough that Loki, who admittedly was feeling more than a little short-tempered, threw a spell at him to freeze him in place. Natasha opened her mouth, and Loki snapped,

"Not one word!"

There was a rather horrible moment of silence. Mitchell said cautiously, "Loki?" This got him a truly menacing glare in return. Which led to a further moment of silence--

And then Mitchell started to giggle, which made Loki glare harder, which caused Mitchell to laugh harder, which made Loki threaten him with one of the hideous shoes, which reduced Mitchell to leaning against the wall uttering helpless snuffling chortles, by which point Loki was also laughing so hard he had to release Clint, and nearly lost control of the transformation altogether, which made Maria Hill grow several inches taller for a moment, which seemed to scare everyone except, once again, Mitchell, who rivaled Loki in the "unusual sense of humour" department and actually had to sit down on the floor with his hands over his face, howling. Had it not been for the short skirt, Loki might have joined him.

There was, perhaps, a small element of hysteria involved, so it was probably just as well that Steve took matters into his own hands. He took Loki by the arm-- in a gentlemanly fashion that unfortunately provoked a further outburst of giggles-- and ushered him down the hall to a bedroom, where he was able to find a change of clothing and transform back into himself. Aside from the usual dizziness, and the additional annoyance of sore feet, Loki was really none the worse for his adventure when he came back out to join the others, wearing jeans, a hooded sweatshirt, and wonderful, wonderful wooly socks.

Mitchell, without comment or even more than a muffled snicker, handed Loki a cup of tea as the group convened in the living room. There was a great deal of sugar in it, which did wonders for Loki's headache. As long as he and Mitchell did not catch each other's eye, Loki thought he should be able to get through his story.

He would worry about Thor's reaction-- which really, could be anything from rampaging overprotectiveness to merciless teasing, and might actually incorporate the entire spectrum-- later.

Tony, rather remarkably, had no remarks to make-- although a look at Steve's stern expression perhaps explained the source of his newfound self-control. Loki turned an apologetic smile on Clint, and said,

"I do apologize for-- " He wiggled his fingers and Clint drew back slightly.

"No problem, man," the archer assured him. "Good to see you feeling like yourself again."

"That's true," Steve agreed, smiling warmly at Loki. "Okay. When you two left, you were going to have a word with Justin Hammer. That was… several hours ago. I think you should bring us up to date."

"Certainly," Loki replied, took another fortifying sip of his better-than-nothing tea, and began.


	18. Chapter 18

As Loki had expected, Steve had quite a reaction to the code names Hydra had chosen for its assault sites. Indeed, the rest of the group seemed equally well versed in their significance. Presumably they had all read the same history books.

However, Steve's reaction to the code names paled in comparison to what happened when Loki described the Hydra leader removing his face.

"His _face?_ " Steve demanded, and was on his feet so fast, moving toward Loki, that Loki dropped his empty teacup in alarm and cast a defensive charm as an invisible wall between them. Steve actually bumped into it, took a step backward, and then sheepishly remembered himself. He backed up another step, hands raised apologetically. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. I was just startled."

"You did not," Loki replied, the lie palpable. As he leaned over to pick up the bits of the broken cup he kept his face averted, so no one could see his embarrassment. To be afraid of _Steve,_ of all creatures!

And yet, just for a moment, his expression really had been frightening.

Steve sat back down. "I'm sorry," he repeated. "That wasn't about you. He took his _face_ off?" Loki nodded. "And his name was Schmidt?" Loki nodded again, wondering whether Steve knew more than one man who could remove his own face and yet live. Surely the fact his name was Schmidt was of lesser import-- ?

"And then he was a red skull, right?" Steve persisted.

"Right," Loki agreed, and did not point out that, if one removed one's face, a red skull was to be expected. Ridiculous as it was, he had no desire to provoke Steve again.

Mitchell, fortunately, was just as confused as Loki, and more willing to admit to it:

"Friend of yours?" he asked carefully.

"You might say that," Steve replied, with a humourless smile that made him look like someone else entirely. "I saw him die, about seventy years ago. Or anyway, I thought I did."

"The fact he could take his face off didn't clue you in that he'd be hard to kill?" Clint asked bluntly, and Loki held his breath, as inconspicuously as possible, until Steve reluctantly laughed.

"Good point," he admitted. "I didn't think of it at the time-- I was kind of busy trying to avoid crashing a plane full of Hydra weapons into a populated area. I guess I figured, if you disappear in a flash of light, you're probably dead." He turned back to Loki, his old self-deprecating self again: "Although come to think of it, you could probably manage that pretty easily, huh?"

"I could," Loki replied, with a self-deprecating smile in return. He did not add that, even with his magical reserves as low as they were at the moment, another show of aggression by Steve would quite probably end with both Loki _and_ Mitchell vanishing, with or without the flash.

"Okay, Steve," Tony said. "Tell us about Schmidt and his skull."

"I would have thought your dad-- " Steve began, and then stopped himself at the expression on Tony's face. Loki recalled that Tony was yet another who enjoyed a troubled relationship with his father-- the difference being that, Tony's father being deceased, there was little he could now do to repair matters. Loki had spent so many centuries feeling sorry for himself that it was still a new experience, to feel sorry for another, but he felt very sorry indeed for Tony.

He felt sorry for Steve, too, when Captain America clasped his hands before himself and said, "I need to stop talking entirely for a few minutes. Tony, I apologize." Without waiting for Tony to respond, Steve went on, "Johann Schmidt, also known as the Red Skull, for obvious reasons, was the leader of Hydra back in the 1940s. He was also part of a Nazi experiment, in which he was given an early variant on the super-soldier formula. It… didn't work the way it was supposed to."

"No kidding," Mitchell murmured. "So he's, what? A zombie?"

"Something like that, I guess. Anyway, whatever he is, he's powerful, he's certainly got access to some kind of magic, and he's every bit as ruthless as Loki figures. The problem is, I'm not sure knowing who he is will do us any good, because I'm not sure there's any permanent way to stop him."

"So let's think of a temporary way for now, and worry about permanent later," Natasha suggested. "We've got ten days before the attack?"

"Considerably less, I would say," Loki spoke up. "Schmidt _said_ the date of the assault was ten days from tonight-- last night," he amended, looking at the wall clock and realizing it was technically morning. "But that was when he thought I was a Dire Wraith impersonating Maria Hill, and he did not appear to know that anything had happened to the Wraith portraying Senator Stern.

"At some point later today, Maria Hill will not appear where she is expected, nor will she contact her fellow Dire Wraiths with whatever updates or commands she is supposed to deliver, and no Dire Wraith will be appointed to take the place of Justin Hammer. The same will be true of Senator Stern. It will then become obvious that a deception has occurred, and-- assuming the Dire Wraiths share this intelligence with their co-conspirators-- Schmidt will undoubtedly adjust the plan to compensate. At a minimum, we can expect things to happen rather faster than the original plan called for. This is not the sort of scheme that is canceled if it rains."

"What are the chances the Wraiths _do_ share the information?" Steve wondered. He seemed to be addressing Loki, who shrugged.

"I have little experience in working with co-conspirators," he admitted. "All of my own evil schemes were solo ventures. But in a plan of this size, I cannot imagine the Wraiths _not_ letting Hydra know of the problem. There is simply too much at stake."

"Well, shit," from Clint, was the only comment any of them could come up with. Feeling it could hardly be improved upon, Loki let it stand.

Tony rubbed his forehead. "Okay, what can we do to get around this?"

Loki had already given it some consideration. "If I resumed the form of Maria Hill, I could probably figure out how the Dire Wraiths' organization works, at least to the extent of arranging for a replacement Stern and Hammer. I think I could bluff for long enough to buy the rest of you some time," he offered. "Perhaps a day or two, at any rate." He was being optimistic, but Loki had always been good at thinking on his feet, and so felt it likely he could at least hold off disaster for long enough to do them _some_ good. That being so, the expressions of disbelief with which the others were regarding him were rather offensive.

"No," Tony replied instantly, before even Mitchell could speak up. "Absolutely not. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure you'd do a bang-up job, but I can't see a way it would end without something really bad happening to you, and we've declared a strict moratorium on 'plans that will almost certainly result in Loki getting killed'." He looked as stern as Tony Stark could probably look. "For one thing, I don't want to have to explain things to your brother. Or Annie. For another, we'd have a hell of a time finding another shapeshifting-sorcerer-magical-consultant we like as much as we like you. So: no deliberately setting out to get yourself killed, okay?"

Loki nodded, chewing on his lower lip and hoping he looked more impassive than he felt. He was embarrassingly touched by Stark's words, particularly because they sounded entirely sincere. For once, Loki did not even mind being scolded like a child.

"I am open to other possibilities," he shrugged.

"How about this?" Mitchell spoke up. "The rest of the gang is supposed to be here by tomorrow. When they arrive, we stage an assault on the... the lair, rescue the prisoners, and then Thor calls Heimdall and takes them to Asgard, where they hide out. And then Thor or Odin or someone gets Byleistr back where he belongs. Surely, if the Jotun thing is straightened out, Asgard can throw some soldiers our way, right?"

"I would think so," Loki replied, when he realized Mitchell was looking to him for a response. "And probably also Vanaheim."

"Right, and then Hydra moves their plans up to respond to us," Tony pointed out.

"Sure. In a hurry, with final details probably left dangling. The element of surprise would be on our side, at least briefly," Mitchell argued. "If we leave them to call the tune, we've got no chance at all."

"You're nuts," Clint spoke up.

"Got a better idea?" Mitchell challenged.

Clint raised his hands. "Take it easy, Dracula. I didn't say I didn't like it."

"Yeah," Natasha agreed. "You know what they say: 'it's so crazy it might work.' And at least we'll be _doing_ something."

"And we would also be freeing Dr. Strange from whatever restraints he has been placed in," Loki spoke up. It felt odd, after his unpleasant experience with the false Dr. Strange, to be so concerned about the welfare of the real one, but he was obviously in the same sort of trouble Loki had been, and was in need of help.

Which reminded Loki of their own prisoner.

"Have any of you attempted to interview Wilbur again?" Loki asked, mostly addressing Steve and Mitchell.

"The Dire Wraith," Tony explained to Clint and Natasha, who looked confused. "Loki calls him Wilbur."

"It is a known phenomenon," Loki insisted, in the face of disbelieving looks. "If we permit ourselves to think of him simply as a problem to be solved, rather than a real creature, we leave ourselves open to the possibility of treating him inhumanely. Calling him by a name--his own would, of course, be preferable-- is one way to remind ourselves."

He ignored the skepticism on the faces of Clint and Natasha: Loki could personally vouch for the effect, and that from both sides. He had experience as the dehumanized and increasingly frightened prisoner, and not only in this most recent instance. He had become fond of Nick Fury over the course of their previous adventure, but he remembered what it had felt like to be bound in the restraints on the helicarrier, wondering whether Fury ever intended to free him, and what would happen to him if Fury did not.

On the other side-- he no longer remembered it clearly, but he knew he also had been one who viewed others as _those monsters,_ and thought that meant he could do anything at all to them.

It was not the Avengers who needed to remind themselves the Dire Wraith was a real creature, and Loki suspected all of them knew it.

"No, none of us have tried to talk to him again," Steve spoke up. "We figured, if he was only willing to speak the Alltongue, there wasn't much point."

"That is true," Loki agreed. And besides, Wilbur just _felt_ like his responsibility. "I think I will have another word with him."

"Sure that's a good idea right now?" Tony asked neutrally.

Loki shrugged. "Possibly not, but it seems like a better one than leaving him alone, to wonder what we are planning to do to him."

"He didn't seem awfully worried about that when we spoke to him earlier," Tony muttered as Loki got to his feet, carefully holding the remnants of his teacup to take to the trash.

"Appearances can be deceiving," Loki muttered back. "And besides, perhaps we can pry some information out of him, now that we have a better idea what is going on."

~oOo~

Wilbur must have changed position at some point since Loki and Tony delivered his supper and left him alone, but one could not tell from his demeanour as Loki let himself back into the cell. The Wraith sat on the edge of the cot, staring at the door. The bowl of cold pasta and the spork were exactly where Loki had left them.

"It was not to your liking?" Loki asked in the Alltongue, trying to inject a note of concern into his own tired voice. "Never mind, perhaps we will find something you like better tomorrow." Loki picked up the rejected meal, then leaned against the wall beside the door, holding the bowl before him. "I met with your ally, Johann Schmidt, tonight." Wilbur gazed at Loki, expression either impassive or filled with hatred, it was still impossible to tell. "You and your comrades are using your shapeshifting abilities to infiltrate and weaken SHIELD, and possibly other agencies that should protect humans from this planned invasion. Those are extremely useful skills for Schmidt to have access to. You know he intends to betray you," Loki added the last bit matter-of-factly.

"He will not be the first human who thought to use us for his own purposes, and was disabused of the idea," Wilbur finally spoke, apparently goaded out of his silence by Loki's assumption the other would be victorious. Loki had not been precisely counting upon this weakness, but he was not surprised by it: Wilbur was hardly the only villain in history-- or even in _this room_ \-- whose shortcomings included an assumption that he was much smarter than everyone else.

Loki cocked his head on one side and offered his most infuriating smirk. "I see. And you still believe him to be human? That is indeed interesting."

"It matters little what he is," Wilbur sneered-- at least, Loki assumed that was what it was. He was welcome to sneer all he liked, as long as he kept talking. "Any creature may be reduced to a state of mewling, whimpering helplessness, begging for mercy." The look he turned upon Loki was definitely taunting.

Loki raised an eyebrow and used every bit of his self-control to keep his voice calm. "I assume you mean me? You are, of course, correct, but keep in mind that I was completely unsuspecting when I was captured. Schmidt would not be such easy prey." He did not care for the image of himself as _prey_ , as a _victim_ , but then again, on the day he was abducted he had certainly had no cause to be on his guard. Shaking off the memory, he picked up the spork and poked at the cold pasta, then smiled as though a thought had just occurred to him. "Although it would indeed be amusing, for him to be taken by surprise." He laughed. "Imagine the look on his _face._ "

The best lies were the ones that hewed fairly close to the truth, and Loki's amusement, as he imagined the Red Skull's expression, was genuine. It certainly seemed to impress Wilbur that way. There were times when a peculiar sense of humour could be distinctly useful.

Loki now adopted an attitude of cheerful conspiracy. "Are you really planning a counter-betrayal? Because that truly would be delicious."

"We would not _share_ the spoils of such a plan as ours," Wilbur hissed, his lamprey-like mouth making good use of the sibilants available to him. "There is no _counter-betrayal_ of creatures so far beneath us."

"So your plan all along was to cooperate with Hydra in order to subjugate Midgard-- Earth-- and then, after the plan succeeded, take the realm away from them?" Loki prompted. He leaned forward, confidingly. "Have your Wraiths already infiltrated Hydra, taking the place of human soldiers?"

"We have not merely replaced common soldiers," Wilbur boasted, and Loki made sure his expression reflected interested admiration. "With the exception of the actual battalion commanders, all of Hydra's officers are now Wraiths." His face suddenly bore a genuine, recognizable, expression, and it was one of savage pleasure. "And, unlike those replaced at the behest of Hydra, these humans will not be making a return in any form."

Loki took that to mean the unfortunate Hydra officers had met the fate described in the library book: brains sucked out and bodies reduced to husks as the Dire Wraiths took over all their memories. It sounded like a rather unpleasant way for even one sworn to evil to die. Loki carefully kept the thought off his face as he commented,

"A far more practical course than the one adopted by Hydra. I would not have expected such an organization to be... soft."

Wilbur sneered again. "Their idea is that the prisoners may be used as shields, or released to confuse matters if it appears that would be convenient."

"So, for instance, the real Senator Stern might be released to take the blame for SHIELD's actions?" Loki asked.

"Yes. As though one who has been given orders would not continue to play his role," Wilbur said, which implied a frankly suicidal level of commitment to the cause. Loki found himself wondering whether Dire Wraiths possessed any awareness of themselves as individuals at all-- now he thought about it, Wilbur seemed to use collective personal pronouns like "us" and "we" exclusively. He tried to remember whether the Wraith had ever used "I" or "me" in his hearing. He rather thought not.

Loki cast about for other questions to ask, could not think of any, was conscious that if he left Wilbur alone now, the Wraith might recognize the folly of his own boasting, of giving away anything to the enemy. This was probably his only chance to extract information from the prisoner.

And then something in Wilbur's posture changed, and Loki realized the window had closed: the Wraith had indeed realized what he had done. Loki reached behind himself to rap on the door as Wilbur rose to his feet, held firmly to his expression of cool interest, but inside was grateful indeed when he felt the door open behind him and he was able to withdraw.

"How'd that go?" Tony asked, as he closed and locked the door behind Loki.

"He was unexpectedly forthcoming," Loki replied. "And it would probably be unwise for me to allow myself to get within grabbing range of him again." He looked down at the bowl in his hands, regretfully. "Also, I am no closer to knowing what foods he prefers."

~oOo~

Bruce Banner appeared at about three o'clock in the morning, with no explanation of where he had been or how he had been notified to come here. None of the Avengers seemed especially concerned with the question.

Thor and the others arrived shortly after sunrise, looking rested and ready for anything. Loki was hard-pressed to conceal his relief at the sight of them.

"Hello, brother," Thor greeted him, laying a hand on his shoulder and tilting his head quizzically. "You look tired."

"Oh, no," Loki responded quickly, trying to look as bright-eyed and alert as possible. "I am perfectly fine."

Thor looked at him narrowly and then brushed his fingers gently against Loki's jaw, a gesture that somehow implied a much greater difference between their ages than there actually was. Loki briefly considered biting him, before realizing that would be no argument for his own maturity. Fortunately, Annie interrupted the moment by embracing Loki, quickly followed by George, who had first greeted Mitchell.

"You do look beat," George insisted as he stepped back. "Are you sure you're-- ?"

"Fine," Loki insisted grumpily, and Annie took his hand.

"No, you're not, but you'll do," she said calmly. Loki turned toward her with a smile.

"Exactly," he said. "I am extremely glad to see you." He regarded Annie's garb and added, "I am even happier that you were wearing comfortable footwear when you died."

"Excuse me?" Annie asked.

"It's all part of the story," Mitchell said quickly. "Everyone have a seat and we'll bring you up to date."

Tony decided a second recounting of recent events called for a large pot of coffee. Annie followed him into the kitchen, where Tony tried not to be alarmed by objects moving around apparently of their own volition as she triumphed over the stale orange pekoe and produced three perfectly lovely cups of tea. Despite being rather awash already, Loki was grateful for the new infusion as he related the events of his evening.

As Loki had expected, when he got to the part about impersonating the director of SHIELD, Thor did not seem to know whether to throw a fit or die laughing. Annie only avoided the second option by dint of already being dead.

"I'm sorry," she finally giggled, wiping her eyes. "I'm sure you made a perfectly lovely girl."

"Of course I did," Loki replied. "I was Maria Hill, who is extremely attractive." Annie favoured him with a raised eyebrow and Loki, who was not stupid, backtracked hastily. "If you like that type. Power-mad and sworn to evil."

"Nice recovery," Mitchell snickered as Annie tried not to laugh again.

"Great legs, though," Tony commented-- with impunity, since Pepper, if she had any interest in Tony's opinions upon the legs of other women, had gone straight to a vacant bedroom upon her arrival anyway, where she was apparently conducting the business of Stark Industries via the secure server.

"And horrible shoes. May I continue with my story?" Loki asked patiently, and went on to describe the plots of Hydra and the counter-plots of the Dire Wraiths.

"Do you believe he was telling the truth?" Thor asked.

"Ordinarily I have confidence in my own ability to spot a lie, but I admit that in this case there is a possibility of deception," Loki admitted, "since I am not acquainted with the 'tells' of this species. Even so, there seems little purpose to the sort of lie he would have been telling. Within the limits of a tendency toward self-- or rather, species-- aggrandizement, I tend to believe he was largely truthful. The question, of course, is whether we can make use of the knowledge for our own benefit."

"Do you suppose, if Hydra moves the plan up, the Wraiths will stick with them until we're defeated?" Bruce asked. "Theoretically, I mean."

Steve frowned. "I think that depends on whether they think they can take us by themselves, whoever 'us' is by then." He looked at Loki.

"I suspect they consider all of us to be lesser species, including the Aesir," Loki shrugged, "but it is hard to believe they would be as overconfident as all that."

"So we'll see," Steve said, with a matching shrug. "How well do you remember the layout of the house and grounds?"

"I will do my best," Loki replied, trying to bring the details to mind so that he could cast a helpful illustrative illusion. As he conjured a view of the grounds, he was aware of Pepper coming down the hall from the bedroom where she had been working. She gestured to Thor, who politely rose and joined her at a slight distance from the others. Loki did not hear what was said, and only vaguely noticed her taking hold of his brother's arm. It took most of his concentration to hold the illusion in place while the others studied it and Tony made a sketch.

Their attention thus occupied, nobody noticed Thor until it was too late.

Loki's first indication something was wrong with his brother came when Thor charged across the room toward him, scattering his comrades, Mjolnir upraised in what appeared to be righteous fury.

There was a time when, even tired and with his powers at a fairly low ebb, Loki would have responded instantly to the threat. However, such was the change in his state of mind of late that, for a critical couple of seconds, he simply did not believe the threat was real. It couldn't be.

The next thing he knew, Loki had bounced off a wall and found himself lying on the floor, the entire left side of his body engulfed in crushing pain, looking up at his brother as Thor had done at the Destroyer. As he himself had at Thor, and Thor's friends, all those years ago.

The flash of memory, of what he had made the Destroyer do, reminded Loki that his dawning feeling of horrified betrayal was hypocritical. But also trying to make itself felt was an old belief, never consciously acknowledged and only half-remembered, that something like this was bound to happen someday, that it was only strange it had taken so long. Once that idea would have come to the fore in time for him to defend himself, but now it was drowned in a wave of disbelief that was both very old and very new.

At least since the incident with Sif's hair, Loki had held a half-conscious conviction that one day Thor was simply going to lose patience with his unwanted brother, would either do away with Loki himself or let someone else do it for him. What Loki had done in Puente Antigua had been mostly motivated by spite and the lunatic conviction that if Thor never came back, everything would be all right, but a tiny and particularly crazy part of his mind had insisted he was protecting himself, that if he did not kill Thor, Thor would certainly one day kill him.

He had failed, of course. And then, when Thor confronted him on the Bifrost, Loki had assumed the reckoning had arrived, assumed only one of them would survive. Even raving mad, he had been surprised when Thor refused the opportunity to kill him, making it necessary for Loki to do the job himself-- or to attempt it and, once again, fail.

It wasn't until Thor had come to Bristol, until they _talked_ , or rather that Loki talked and Thor, astonishingly, had actually _listened_ to him, that his perception of his brother had begun to change. And then Loki had found himself back in Asgard, where Thor had tried to defend him, at least until they realized their father did not have retribution in mind, to say nothing of that first adventure with the Avengers. Loki had begun to realize that either Thor had changed, or Loki had always been unfair-- or, of course, both.

And then had come his captivity and the utter terror that followed, and, again, Thor had been there, had helped him. Loki, who never did anything halfway, had found himself retrieving long-buried memories of how he had trusted his brother, counted on him, when they were very young, before loyalties were divided and everything had come between them.

What resulted was a solid conviction that Thor would not harm him, could not be compelled even by sorcery to do something so contrary to his own inclinations. Loki had always been vulnerable to all sorts of tricks played upon him by his own mind and, even now, as he looked up at the unrecognizably furious face of his brother, he believed in the blood bubbling into his mouth but not in what was happening.

And then the blood was trapped as Thor caught him in a brutal grip by the throat, yanked him upright, and slammed him back into the wall he had just crashed into. Constellations of pain disoriented him and the rush of blood in his head drowned out most of what Thor was roaring about treacherous Jotun bastards.

Which was true, of course it was true, even trying to claw Thor's fingers loose with his one good hand Loki retained enough awareness to acknowledge it... only they had... Thor had said... they were supposed to have forgiven each other.

The whole thing had happened so fast that the others were only now reaching Thor, Loki's housemates pleading with him as they tried to pry his hand loose and block him from bringing Mjolnir back into play, the Avengers starting forward, Bruce turning green and changing shape, Pepper clinging to Thor's arm but not, as far as Loki could see, doing anything else, Steve grabbing the shield that was never far from his hand, Clint and Natasha scrambling for weapons, Pepper appearing in the hall looking bewildered while Tony frantically dove for his suit--

Even in his state of shock, Loki registered the anomaly of _two_ Peppers. Tony did the same, gestured to Steve. There was no time to argue and Steve instinctively followed Tony's direction, hurled the red-white-and-blue shield at the Pepper holding Thor's arm. The vibranium edge caught her in the temple.

She disintegrated.

A moment later, Loki was retching blood but also receiving oxygen as his half-crushed windpipe began to expand. He was aware of being held up, of an arm around him, of clutching at armour with his good hand, and he looked up into the horrified face of his brother. Thor's expression was such a relief that Loki almost forgot his own shattered ribs and broken arm, tried to smile reassuringly. The bloody froth on his lips could not have been much comfort to anyone.

"Thor, please, just let him go," Steve was saying, demonstrating that he did not quite understand what was going on. Steve was not the only one.

"What happened?" Thor demanded, instinctively keeping himself between Steve and Loki, who more and more felt like a ragdoll. And then, as the situation began to make an impression upon him: "What did I do?"

"Nothing," Tony said firmly. "Wilbur got loose. I thought I had him secured but I was wrong. Loki, are you okay?" Loki was incapable of speech, but apparently his face told Tony everything he needed to know. "Thor, let George and Mitchell take him, okay? Come on, man, let go of him."

A moment later Loki was in one of the bedrooms, getting blood all over the bedclothes, propped up by his friends and trying to concentrate on the healing spell he had at various times used to save George from vampires and Thor from a sword thrust to the chest. It was actually not a terribly hard spell, but it called for a high level of concentration and was therefore difficult to perform on oneself when injured and confused. It was not easy to focus on an image of his ribs knitting back together and his lung healing when he was fully occupied trying not to faint, which he knew perfectly well might have fatal consequences.

Annie unwittingly saved the situation by sitting next to him, holding his uninjured hand and placing her other hand on the back of his neck. Annie's hands were cold and Loki, who was beginning to feel feverish, gratefully found that they helped him to concentrate.

It took every spark of magic he could muster, and by the time the spell was complete Loki was drenched in sweat and trembling violently. Still, he could breathe without expelling a fine bloody spray, and he could control his left arm. Everything hurt, but considerably less than it had.

"I hope this can be cleaned," he mumbled, looking at the wreck of the top sheet. Annie's grip on his hand tightened, but before she could rebuke him for trying to joke at such a time, Loki went on, "I need to see Thor." He was conscious of his friends trading anxious looks and repeated more urgently, trying to sit up straighter, "I have to speak to my brother."

"Calm down. Just a second," Mitchell replied, rising. "I'll be right back." He dashed out of the room, closing the door after him.

Loki determinedly pulled himself up to sit on the edge of the bed, scuffled at the bedclothes to hide the bloody sheet. He looked a warning at Annie and George and said, as firmly as he could,

"This was not Thor's fault. You must not blame him."

"No, of course not," Annie said unconvincingly, glancing at George.

"Annie-- " Loki began, and then the door opened and Mitchell stuck his head in.

"He's right here," Mitchell announced, then entered the room, saying over his shoulder, "just take it easy, okay?"

Thor's natural inclination was, as Loki's friend Carol would say, to come through a door like something thrown through a window, but very fortunately he restrained himself enough to heed Mitchell's warning. Loki had spoken the truth when he said his injuries were not the fault of his brother: it was evident even to one in Loki's battered and confused state that the false Pepper had actually been Wilbur, who had escaped his confinement-- Loki would have words with Tony about that-- and placed a spell on Thor. The nature of the spell was worth thinking about, when he felt more able to concentrate: it appeared to require physical contact to maintain.

At any rate, Wilbur had apparently extracted his revenge on Loki for making a fool of him, and had made Thor his unwitting tool. Clearly, Loki had been mistaken in his belief that Thor could not be compelled by magic to do something he would not otherwise contemplate.

Loki knew all this, and he truly did not blame Thor for any of it, but it was still as well that Thor came through the door with caution, slowly, because it gave Loki the time to master his involuntary flinch at the sight of him. He did not blame Thor, not in his heart or his mind, but the rest of him seemed to feel it would be much safer to take flight in case of a repeat performance.

Annie, George, and Mitchell looked uneasy, as though they thought perhaps they should give the brothers some privacy but were afraid to leave. They would withdraw if Loki asked them to, but he found himself preferring they stay: not because he was afraid of Thor, but so that they could see for themselves Thor was even more horrified about what had happened than they were.

"How are you, brother?" Thor asked hesitantly, large hands twisting in front of him. In spite of his size, he looked like nothing quite so much as a contrite child. It was surprisingly easy for Loki to smile reassuringly, flight impulse receding at the sight of his brother's expression.

"I am perfectly well," Loki said firmly. Thor looked torn between awareness of the lie and the wish to let himself believe it.

"I cannot tell you how sorry I am," Thor began helplessly.

"It was not your fault, and we have learned something valuable about the magic of Dire Wraiths," Loki insisted. Thor's face twisted, and Loki, bewildered, repeated, "I am well, and it was not your fault."

Annie smiled at Thor, and thankfully there was nothing alien in her expression. "I think Loki needs to get some rest now, all right, Thor?" Thor nodded, cast another painful glance at Loki, and withdrew. Annie turned the smile reassuringly upon Loki. "If you get up for a second, we can pull that top sheet off for you. I think everything else is okay."

"Thank you," Loki mumbled, suddenly overcome with weariness. He tottered to his feet and held onto Mitchell while George and Annie dealt with the sheet. A few moments later he had somehow shed most of his clothes and was under a blanket, and that was all he remembered.

~oOo~

Loki awoke with no sense of the passage of time: he might have been asleep for hours or days. He felt groggy and rather sore, but not much worse than he used to after a training session with Tyr-- or rather, with the palace guards, _after_ the session with Tyr, when he actually worked on whatever it was Tyr had been trying to impart.

If he had stayed where he was, he probably would have fallen asleep again, but he was hungry, and also felt recovered enough to be curious about what everyone else was doing. Also, after he had been awake for a moment all that tea began to make itself known, and his mouth tasted like stale blood. Loki sat up, cast about for his discarded jeans, found himself lacking the ambition to dress any further, left the rumpled bed as it was and left the room.

As he emerged from the bathroom, feeling a little brighter with his face washed and his teeth brushed, George appeared in the hallway.

"Are you sure you should be up?" George fussed mildly.

"It was a matter of some necessity," Loki replied. "I hope the green toothbrush in the wrapper was not assigned to anyone else?"

"No, no, that's yours all right," George replied, waving his hand dismissively. "Pepper went out and picked up a few things."

"Ah. How kind of her." Loki walked toward him, carefully not pausing to look at the empty cell as he passed it, but aware of a feeling of failure regardless. "It seems rather quiet?"

"Yes. Everyone else is out on reconnaissance. Hungry?" George said, gesturing to Loki to follow him into the kitchen.

"What do you mean, reconnaissance?" Loki asked, feeling an unpleasant jolt under his diaphragm.

"Just what I said: they've gone to take a look around the Hydra lair and environs."

"Annie and Mitchell and everyone?" Loki persisted.

"Yes, well, she pointed out that being invisible to humans and already dead makes her an ideal scout. She has a point." George opened the refrigerator. "Care for an egg?"

"Do not trouble yourself," Loki began.

"Shut it. Care for an egg?" George said with implacable cheerfulness, apparently unconcerned with the logical difficulty inherent in asking Loki to "shut it" while also compelling him to respond to questions. "I'm having one. Or maybe two. Poached, I think. You?"

Loki decided he had stood for a sufficient amount of time and sat down on a stool at the countertop where he, Mitchell, Tony and Steve had eaten their dinner.

"That would be nice," he admitted. "Thank you."

"No trouble," George said, as he hunted up a frying pan. He cast a thoughtful glance at Loki and said, "Are you upset they didn't wait for you?"

"No, no," Loki replied, unconvincingly, feeling rather silly. George continued to study him.

"Because we're a little short on time, and you've already done more than your bit," he pointed out. "It struck everyone as the best division of labour, if you see what I mean."

"And you do not mind being stuck here looking after me?" Loki asked.

"Oh, no." George smiled. "It's not a mission that plays to my strengths, anyway. And it's good to see you up and around, although you should probably have another lie-down before the real attack later tonight." Loki nodded as agreeably as he could, and George set the pan of water to boil.

The two were quiet until they each had a plate with two poached eggs sitting upon two pieces of toast before them. Loki thanked George, and had just picked up his fork when his friend asked hesitantly,

"Thor's still pretty upset about... what he did. Are you... are you really not mad at him?"

Loki looked up, assessed George's anxious expression, and said firmly-- and almost entirely truthfully-- "I am not. It was not under his control. Besides, as I told him earlier, the incident revealed something useful about the magic of Dire Wraiths-- "

"Yes, I remember you mentioning that. If you'll take a piece of advice, don't make that argument to him again, all right?" Loki, who had a mouthful of egg and toast, raised his eyebrows. "I don't think Thor is exactly comforted by the idea that he nearly killed you, but hey! It's all right because we learned something useful about Dire Wraiths!"

Loki swallowed his mouthful, and then argued, "But it is indeed a useful thing for us to know. You must concede that."

"Yeah, of course it is. You just... sound a little cold-blooded about it."

Loki frowned. "It would sound a great deal more cold-blooded if I were the one who had attacked Thor. Again."

"And there you go," George sighed.

"What?" Loki demanded, feeling increasingly defensive.

"Next you'll be saying you deserved it anyway," George said, his normally mild blue eyes very sharp behind his spectacles.

Loki felt heat rushing to his face. "Do not be silly," he mumbled.

"Because you do that, you know. Kind of a lot, although not always in so many words," George said implacably. Loki lowered his eyes and poked uneasily at his eggs. Gently mimicking Loki's voice, George said, "'Oh, well, it doesn't matter if something terrible happens to me, because I'm a bad person anyway so I deserve it.'" He returned to his own voice and went on, "I almost hate to mention it, because God knows you don't need to feel guilty about anything else, but it's painful, you know, for people who are fond of you, to know you feel like that. We're always a little afraid you'll actually _let_ something really bad happen to yourself, trying to make amends for... something."

"You must concede I have a considerable amount for which to make amends," Loki defended himself. "What I did to Thor alone-- "

George sighed, put down his fork, and leaned forward. "Loki. Listen to me. Or read my lips if you'd rather. Thor. Has. Forgiven. You. Remember that part?"

"Of course I do," Loki muttered sulkily, beginning to fish around for magic and unfortunately not finding enough to teleport away from his friend and his friend's words.

"Okay. Now, you forgave Thor, right?"

"Right."

"And when all those old stories came out when we were on Vanaheim, you didn't get angry at him all over again, did you?"

"... no." And then guilt compelled him to add, "But I _remember_ all about them. Surely I should not _remember_ everything so clearly, how I felt at the time, if I really have forgiven him?"

"Forgiveness isn't the same thing as traumatic brain injury," George pointed out. "Now stop trying to change the subject. Thor did some pretty bad things to you, back in the old days, even though he probably didn't mean most of them. You could argue that it's actually worse, to hurt someone over and over and not even notice you're doing it."

"That is all in the past," Loki said, an edge coming into his voice as he defended his brother. "It is over."

"Exactly. And you don't go around trying to hurt Thor anymore, to pay him back for things that happened in the past, right?"

"The circumstances are not the same," Loki muttered.

"You don't go around trying to-- " George persisted.

"No," Loki snapped. "I do not."

"Great. Neither does Thor. And I don't think he wants to be the unwitting agent of your continued punishment. In fact, I think it would probably hurt him a lot if you even hinted at it, okay?" Loki dropped his gaze to his plate, but he could still feel George's eyes burning into the top of his head. Also, he had to admit George was right: if he inadvertently harmed Thor again, he would not take any comfort in Thor insisting it was deserved and therefore quite all right. If anything, such a response would probably make him feel even worse.

"All right," Loki muttered, applying himself to his cold eggs. "You are correct. What response do you recommend?"

"I think you're on the right track telling him it's not his fault, just don't act like it's a lucky thing he happened to get a spell put on him that made him do something terrible to someone he loves, okay?"

"Okay," Loki muttered, keeping his eyes down and feeling smaller by the second.

George looked at him for a moment, then sighed. "And you might consider... at least think about... you've forgiven Thor, and I think a bunch of other people you've been angry at for a long time. And Thor's forgiven you. I just wonder... have you ever considered maybe someday forgiving yourself?"

Loki did not dare look up, and after a moment he heard George get up and move toward him. He stiffened, but all George did was rest a hand on his shoulder for a moment. "Just give it some thought," George said quietly, and then walked over to the sink to begin the washing up. "Also, you should probably go lie down again for a while, when you're finished eating."

Loki gratefully took him up on the suggestion, but it was quite some time before he was able to go back to sleep.


	19. Chapter 19

Annie could carry a grudge as well as anyone, and she knew it perfectly well. After the stories she'd heard on Vanaheim, she'd been so angry at both Thor and Sif that she could hardly look at either of them. This despite Loki repeatedly making the point the incidents they were talking about had happened hundreds of years ago, and everyone involved had been children. It didn't matter, at least not at first, although she'd eventually managed to remember that Thor was a different person now-- as was Loki-- and she wouldn't do Loki any good by holding a grudge of her own against Thor. Or, in fact, Sif, who quite obviously felt bad about being a brat as a youngster and seemed to be a much nicer person as a grownup.

Although as far as Thor's pals the Warriors Three were concerned, she would be quite happy never to see any of them again.

Annie could carry a grudge as well as anyone. So it really didn't make a lot of sense that, having actually watched Thor actually almost kill Loki in front of her actual eyes, she found she couldn't bring herself to be angry at him.

Maybe it wasn't so surprising as all that, though, not with Thor looking so utterly stricken. It had somehow been much easier to hold a grudge over the childhood stories-- particularly since Annie had persistently found herself picturing Loki as a little boy, but still seeing Thor and his friends as adults.

There was no question of her mind playing any such tricks now, not with Thor right there looking like he was seriously considering calling down a lightning strike on himself, if he could figure out how to do it without incinerating everybody else.

And speaking of everybody else, the rest of the group wasn't exactly being helpful. After Loki fell asleep, the housemates rejoined the group to find Thor sitting off by himself. None of the others seemed to be able to even speak to him. Annie found herself getting seriously irritated at the rest of the Avengers: weren't superheroes supposed to _know_ how to handle weird situations like this?

Well, okay, maybe not "magical alien casts spell on other sort-of magical alien and causes him to attack third magical alien who also happens to be his brother, with disastrous results." That might have been a bit much even for superheroes, but still: the principle was there. Surely these idiots understood that the guy _who had the spell put on him_ was a victim, too?

It was a shame the Avengers couldn't see Annie, because she was wasting some very disgusted looks.

George and Mitchell weren't much more help, although at least they had enough sense to go sit near Thor, so he knew they didn't think he was about to go berserk again. Still, it was very unusual for Mitchell, at least, not to have anything to say, and Thor probably knew him well enough to realize it.

Men. Useless. And Natasha and Pepper, too. Annie was a little surprised at Pepper, frankly. Regardless, she marched over to Thor, elbowing Mitchell out of the way so he knew she was mad at him, too. Thor wouldn't look at her, so she took him by the arm and said quietly,

"Nobody blames you." Thor's jaw set grimly, and Annie sighed. "Nobody but you, I mean. Loki doesn't. And you know I love your brother, but we also both know if _he_ doesn't blame you, it really _wasn't_ your fault."

Annie was stretching a point and Thor probably knew it: the Loki he had grown up with and the Loki who lived in Annie's house were very different versions of the same person. Annie's Loki had a bad habit of blaming himself for pretty much everything, which she suspected was a reaction to Thor's Loki's bad habit of blaming everyone else for everything. Annie figured being eaten up with remorse was better for your soul than being eaten up with anger and resentment, but probably not by very much. And it was bound to do your head in sooner or later, which she did not have time to worry about right now but would definitely bear thinking about later.

And speaking of doing your head in-- it was pretty clear that, until recently, Thor had cheerfully assumed himself to be the good guy, no matter what happened or what he did. Whether it was the result of his exile, or a reaction to Loki's complete breakdown, or a combination of things, Thor seemed to be drastically reassessing everything he had ever done, and not being terribly fair to himself. Now, who was that like?

Really, anyone who wanted to argue nature versus nurture in the formation of personality needed to have a look at the Odinson brothers, who technically weren't even members of the same _species_ and still could not be more alike.

"Repeat after me," she said quietly. "It was a spell. It wasn't you, it was a spell. I'm sure Tony feels awful about the Dire Wraith getting loose in the first place, but really, it was a terrible accident. You and Loki can talk about this later, but right now, you need to get your mind back on business. Okay?"

Thor's mouth tightened but he looked down at her and nodded. "Okay."

It was anybody's guess what the rest of the group thought of Thor's sudden, intense interest in something the rest of them couldn't see or hear, but the relief in George and Mitchell's expressions seemed to reassure them. Even so, no one spoke, which gave Annie a chance to offer a suggestion she had been about to make earlier, before all hell broke loose:

"I was thinking about our idea of rescuing the prisoners-- I should probably go in first and have a look around. Can you tell the others that?" As she had expected, the boys looked like this was the worst idea ever. Annie insisted, "Humans can't see me, which gives me an advantage over most of you."

"The Red Skull will probably be able to see you just fine," George pointed out.

"He didn't spot Loki," Annie argued.

"As far as we know he didn't," Mitchell chipped in. "Maybe there's some kind of double-fake going on. Or maybe he really couldn't recognize Loki as a different kind of magical creature. It certainly doesn't follow that he can't see you."

"Okay, let's say he can," Annie agreed. "Even so-- I can get away a lot faster than the rest of you, and it's not very likely he can do anything to hurt me. And even if he can, it's still worth-- "

"Don't you start," George almost snarled. Annie actually flinched.

"What?" she demanded.

"One is more than enough," George replied. It took Annie a moment, but she said gently,

"I was just going to say, it's worth the risk. You know: normal, ordinary, cost-of-doing-superhero-business risk. I don't plan on doing anything reckless. Besides, if I stick to the dungeons, I probably won't run into the Red Skull anyway. I can just check on the prisoners and let the rest of you know if anybody's going to need extra help getting out or anything like that. You know, so you don't get blindsided by a badly injured Frost Giant or something."

Thor, who had been listening intently, spoke up: "Annie makes a great deal of sense. I agree with her plan." Annie suspected he was agreeing with her mostly to show his gratitude to her for trying to make him feel better, but she still turned a look of triumph on the boys. Before they could come up with any other arguments, Thor turned to the Avengers: "Annie has volunteered to act as a scout for us, at Hydra's headquarters. I believe she is ideally suited to such a mission. Also, since Loki was... unable to show us his complete memories of the layout, it would be a good idea to engage in reconnaissance, in advance of the actual rescue effort."

Coulson, who had up until this point been blending into the background, spoke up. "Good idea," he said firmly. Looking in the wrong direction, he added, "Thank you, Annie. We'll be glad to accept your offer."

Annie tried not to let her housemates see that she was suddenly reconsidering how good an idea this was, after all.

~oOo~

It didn't seem quite fair to ask Pepper to deal with the aftermath of Thor and Loki's altercation, so George agreed to stay behind and wait for Loki to wake up. Annie was glad of that, because Mitchell was much less likely to second-guess a bad idea when it was too late. Of course, Mitchell was also much likelier than George to be the one who came up with the bad idea in the first place.

Thor, who had certainly come up with more bad ideas in his lifetime than all of them combined-- with the possible exception of his brother-- accompanied her as far into the woods as he deemed safe, and then left her to continue on her own. Reminding herself that she was already dead, Annie crept forward.

Annie could quite easily transport herself between two known points-- once in a while she dropped in on Loki at work, for instance, and it was nice not to have to contend with the bus-- but to get into a new place like the Hydra mansion she was going to have to walk right up as though planning to use the door. Getting back to the others wasn't going to be a problem, since Annie could use someone she was fond of as a sort of anchor, and so she would simply transport herself back to Mitchell.

Walking toward the hideout was nerve-wracking despite being fairly confident none of the guards could spot her. Being a ghost also meant they couldn't hear her: Loki was the only person she knew who had a reliable sense of her as a physical presence-- even George and Mitchell had to concentrate pretty hard to be able to hug her-- and, while that was lonesome sometimes, it did mean she could move through underbrush and over dead leaves and twigs without even disturbing the little animals that lived in the woods. She probably could have been equally soft-footed even in Maria Hill's horrible shoes, she reflected with an internal smirk.

She reached the electrified fence that surrounded the premises, passed cautiously through it, and was relieved to realize it was, in fact, just a fence, without any inconvenient curses or other magic connected to it. She looked around, instinctively froze at the sight of uniformed guards, then relaxed a little when it became clear they really could not see her. That worry settled, she turned her attention to the house.

There were no windows in the cellar level, which made sense considering that was where the dungeons were-- if there ever had been windows, they were long since bricked up. Annie walked around the house, making certain to stay at a safe distance from the guards in case any were sensitive enough to have a "someone walked over my grave" reaction that might make them suspect something. At the back of the house, on the ground floor, was a virtual wall of paneled windows and French doors, which led into what appeared to be the library Loki had described to them.

There was nobody inside, and it seemed to be as good an entry point as any, so Annie passed through the French door. Once again, she had the impression of a perfectly ordinary door that easily permitted a ghost to walk through. Good.

If she'd had more time, Annie would have liked to stop and look around. She wasn't especially fascinated by libraries as such, but it was a beautiful room, an opulent relic of the days when the house belonged to a railway baron or businessman, instead of an evil organization bent on taking over the world. It had high ceilings with moldings, a great stone fireplace, lavish Persian rugs over the hardwood floor, and the whole room was bigger than her house back in Bristol. Really, crime seemed to pay quite well for Hydra.

Walking softly even for a ghost, Annie went to the door that led to the rest of the house and peeked out. To her right down the hallway was the entry, partly obscured by the great staircase. There were guards visible, and one turned to look directly at, or rather through, her without giving any sign of seeing her. She heard footsteps coming down the staircase and a moment later another guard came into view. Annie gathered her nerve, still feeling exposed, and moved down the hallway closer to them.

"The Leader does not wish to be disturbed for the rest of the day," said the new guard, whose gray uniform bore badges the others' didn't. Annie decided these were probably rank insignia, and this guard was the Hydra equivalent of an NCO. The other guards' respectful wariness seemed to confirm her suspicion. Anyway, the Leader almost had to be the Red Skull, and from the sound of things he was either sleeping off a hangover (unlikely) or had closed himself in a private office to plot (much more likely.)

"Does he still intend to… pay a visit to the Wraiths tonight?" one of the guards asked, sounding apprehensive-- although, based on Annie's impression of the Dire Wraiths, not nearly apprehensive enough. Annie couldn't see the senior guard's face but he didn't reply and the other guard went a little pale, which indicated his "mind your own business" expression was worth seeing.

"You will know of the Leader's intentions when you need to," the NCO said coldly, and went back up the stairs.

Okay. If the Skull was busy upstairs now, it was definitely her moment to investigate the dungeons. And if he intended to go somewhere tonight-- probably accompanied by some of the guards, judging by the question and the anxiety-- that would be the idea time for the Avengers to stage a rescue. Obviously there would be other guards left behind, but the Red Skull was the only one she was really worried about.

To Annie's left, the hallway ended in a door covered in heavy, faded green cloth. As an experienced watcher of period dramas, Annie recognized this as a "baize door," of the type that was once commonly used to separate the staff quarters from that of the family in houses with live-in servants. The cloth was supposed to act as soundproofing between the two sections of the household.

The dungeons were, according to Loki, located in what had been the cellars. He had not had a chance to describe the route he had taken to get there, but, in a house like this, Annie figured access to the cellars would be on the staff side of this door. Rather than pass through the floor and hope for the best-- Loki had once expressed the opinion that Thor or Sif could do her an injury despite her vital status, and if Frost Giants could, too, she didn't want to find out by landing on one's head and startling it-- Annie decided to find the route the Avengers would have to take anyway.

She passed through the door, and also through a man in a chef's uniform, who had been standing just inside. He shivered as violently as she feared but, since he was tasting what looked like home-made ice cream at the time, he didn't seem to think anything of it. Annie avoided his assistants as she hurried though the kitchen, reflecting that even the irredeemably evil appeared to like ice cream, and stepped into an alcove that-- again, based on period dramas-- she knew was called a butler's pantry. It was something like a short hallway, lined on both sides with drawers and cabinets. At the back of the space were a set of shelves, holding non-perishables and canned items, that were clearly not part of the original building. They were far more utilitarian than the rest of the classic-looking furnishings of the pantry, and Annie realized the wall behind them was roughly plastered, which also didn't fit with the rest of the space.

It only took her a moment to figure out what that meant: the plastered-over wall had probably once been a doorway. And it didn't seem likely the chef would be allowed in and out of the dungeons. So: the recently plastered-over doorway in the butler's pantry probably led to the cellars-- it would have been convenient for the long-ago staff who had to fetch wine or potatoes or whatever-- and the current dungeon access was now somewhere more secure.

From Annie's point of view the plastering meant very little, of course, and once she was inside it wouldn't be hard to find a way for the rest of the gang to get in and out. Conscious of time passing and the others waiting, she stepped through the shelves and the wall behind them.

She'd been alert for nothingness under her feet, but in fact there was a perfectly good stairwell right behind the wall, curving downward into a damp-smelling and rather creepy cellar. _What kind of a ghost are you?_ she chided herself as she crept nervously down the steps. The answer came immediately: _The kind that prefers sunlight and open spaces, thanks._

The stairwell opened at the bottom into a corridor that ran away to the left and right. At each end of the corridor was a guard, the two of them sitting staring at each other in silence, rifles held across their knees. Behind the one to Annie's left was a heavy steel door. Annie made a mental note to leave that way to check the Avengers' route, and also to take as close a look as she could at the guard's rifle. Not that she knew anything about rifles, but maybe if she described it really well the others would know whether it fired electromagnetic pulses or bullets.

Between the two guards, in the walls on both sides of the corridor, were a series of more heavy steel doors, maybe ten to a side. There was no sound from inside them, which might have meant the cells were sound-proofed, or might have meant the prisoners were all too far gone or hopeless to cry out.

Annie made a mental inventory of prisoners she was supposed to look for: Nick Fury, Dr. Strange, Maria Hill, two Frost Giants, Senator Stern, Justin Hammer, and an unknown woman who Loki thought might be Mrs. Strange. Loki had not sensed anyone else down here, but Annie decided she would look in all the cells anyway: Loki had been invisible to Heimdall during his own captivity, so there was a chance there was someone else down here shielded from Loki's senses, too.

She hoped not, both for the sake of the hypothetical prisoners and because Loki would feel so bad if he had missed anyone, but she'd look in each cell just in case.

Okay. Might as well be methodical. Annie decided to begin at one end-- the one to her right made sense, as she planned to leave through the door at the other. Rather than go up one side and down the other, Annie decided to alternate sides of the corridor. She took a deep breath-- strange how physical habits died so much harder than people did-- turned right, and walked toward the guard. Despite having been pretty sure he couldn't see her, she was still relieved when he didn't.

About two paces away from the guard, Annie turned left and walked through the wall into the first cell.

Judging by her outfit, Maria Hill had been captured while doing yoga: she was wearing a bright blue tank top, black stretchy capri pants, and sneakers. Annie had intended to carry a grudge against the director of SHIELD, partly just in case Hill really had ordered Loki kidnapped before she was nabbed herself (unlikely, but possible), and partly because of Loki's "very attractive" comment earlier.

However, it was hard to hold into that idea right now. The SHIELD agent must be terribly cold, dressed like that in a damp stone-and-concrete cell. Hill, who was shivering, had the scratchy gray blanket from her cot wrapped around her, and was standing at the back of the cell, using what might have been one of the bolts that had held the cot to the floor to pick at the mortar of the bricked-in window above her head. Her hands were scratched and bloody, and her lips were chapped from chewing on them as she worked.

Annie took a step forward to look at the mortar, which was barely scratched. At her current rate of progress, Annie estimated Hill would free herself shortly after Thor and Loki both died of old age. Also, if she did make visible progress, surely a guard would notice it long before she got the window open, and move her to another cell.

It was a pointless effort-- the kind of pointless effort someone might make when they knew their situation was hopeless but they were too proud and too tough to give up. Any effort was better than doing nothing.

Annie hesitated a few steps into the cell, and then, though she knew Maria Hill couldn't hear, told her, "I'm coming back with help. It's going to be all right."

And then she went on to the next cell.

Senator Stern had given up, was lying on the cot looking as grey as the blanket. He certainly didn't have the guts of Maria Hill, but Annie was suddenly concerned that he might have a heart condition or something, because he really did look sick.

Nick Fury had all the guts anyone could ask for, but he was a lot older and a lot more patient than Hill. He was sitting on his bunk, leaned back against the wall, facing the door. Annie suddenly thought of her last trip to the zoo, when she had spent a long time watching the tigers. Some of them paced in their enclosures, but a couple of them just seemed to be… waiting. Nick Fury was definitely… waiting.

Annie wished she had had a lipstick in her pocket when she died, so she could write Fury a note to let him know that help was on the way. Instead, she sat down on the edge of the bunk beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. Fury flinched as though someone had rubbed him with an ice cube, and then turned his head.

"Annie?" he asked, quietly and perfectly calmly. He wasn't focusing on her and Annie knew he couldn't see her, but he seemed certain he hadn't just felt a random chill. Annie had always had the feeling both Fury and Coulson were a little more tuned in to her presence than most humans, and Fury's reaction seemed to confirm that. She patted him and then got to her feet. Fury looked around as though he was aware of something receding, and Annie wished even more for a phantom lipstick. There was nothing further she could do, though, so she moved on.

The occupant of the fourth cell was sitting on the floor, clearly too large to be able to lie on a human-sized cot or to stand upright. His crimson eyes focused on Annie with an unsettling calm as she stepped through the wall, and after a moment he said something guttural in a language Annie did not understand.

"I'm sorry," she said, trying not to stare at his blue skin, or the raised lines marking it. "I'm afraid I don't speak your language." Since Loki and Thor both spoke English like natives (like natives _of her country,_ in fact) Annie hadn't stopped to consider the Frost Giant probably would not. Or, come to think of it, wonder why Thor and Loki _did._

Before she had time to worry about how they were going to communicate, the huge creature frowned thoughtfully and then, in an accent that struck her as vaguely Scandinavian, replied,

"I apologize, little one. Humans generally use the portal to enter this chamber, and so I assumed whatever sort of being you are would speak the Alltongue."

Annie blinked, remembered Loki referring to speaking that language to the Dire Wraith, and wondered whether Earthlings were the only creatures in the universe whose inhabitants didn't as a matter of course learn multiple languages. On second thought, maybe she just meant _English-speaking_ Earthlings, since everyone she had ever met from the European continent spoke at least two languages fluently.

And now was not the time to reflect on English insularity. Smiling at the huge creature (and hoping his was not a species that took a show of teeth as a threat) she said,

"It was my mistake. My name is Annie. I'm here to make sure you're okay-- that, that you are well, and to let you know that some friends of mine are planning to rescue you."

The creature's-- the Jotun's-- red eyes sharpened. "And why would you and your friends be concerned with my welfare?"

Fair question, she supposed, although she suddenly didn't know exactly how to answer. It didn't seem wise to bring up Loki, although considering the recent change in relations Thor had spoken of, maybe it was safe to mention Thor.

"Are you King Byleistr?" she asked, stalling for time.

"I am not," the Jotun replied. "My name is Helblindi. I am an advisor to my king."

Helblindi, Annie remembered, was the name of the Jotun that Volstagg had taken a liking to. He had told Thor stories about Loki's mother, and Thor had found him grandfatherly. Feeling a little braver, Annie explained,

"You were taken prisoner as part of a scheme to, to conquer Earth. Midgard. My friends intend to stop it, and to rescue all the prisoners who are being held here. We're going to take you and your king back to Jotunheim."

Helblindi inclined his head. "And how will you do this?" He seemed to have all the time in the world. Of course, Annie conceded, since he was a grandfatherly figure to Thor, who was about a thousand Earth-years old himself, he probably didn't ever feel the need to act hastily. Remembering the second _Lord of the Rings_ movie, Annie suddenly wondered whether this was what it was like to talk to an Ent.

Annie took a deep breath. "One of my friends is Thor, son of Odin." That sounded correct. "He is going to take you to Asgard by means of the Bifrost, and then back to Jotunheim." Forestalling the obvious next question-- why would Thor or his friends want to do this-- Annie went on, "The beings who captured you have taken your king's place in Jotunheim, and are threatening war on Asgard and Vanaheim. We think they're doing that as a diversion, to keep Odin and the king of Vanaheim from coming to help Midgard. So taking you home is the best way to help your people, Thor's people, and my people all at the same time."

Helblindi nodded thoughtfully. Annie had an unhappy idea that it was the self-interest in her explanation that had convinced him. Probably the Jotun were not used to anybody wanting to help them just for the sake of helping them. She wished she could think of something to say that would change that idea in Helblindi's mind, but the only thing that came to her ("I have this friend who tried to kill all of you, and he wants to make amends") didn't exactly sound helpful.

Instead, she asked, "Are you… do you feel all right? Is it too warm in here for you?" Not that there was anything she could do about it, but she wanted to let Helblindi know she felt concern for _him._

The old Jotun looked amused. "Thank you, little one. Annie. I am perfectly well. I am not made of ice, nor will I melt."

"Oh. Okay. Well, I have to go check on the others. Would you-- do you want me to take a message to your king for you? I can do that. And if you like I can come back and let you know how he is?" She was not quite able to stop the offer from turning up at the end into a question.

Helblindi smiled, although Annie wasn't sure whether it was a natural expression for a Jotun, or if he had realized her smile was meant to be friendly and he was trying to return the favour.

"I would take it very kindly if you could tell Byleistr-King that I am well, and return to tell me how he fares. Thank you."

"You're welcome," Annie replied. "I'll be right back."

Byleistr-King was not quite as mellow as Helblindi-- he was younger, more impatient, and a lot more angry. With that said, he wasn't angry at _her_ , and he wasn't scary or anything-- Annie was perfectly willing to believe a Jotun bent on killing you would be just as terrifying as Loki had apparently always believed, but when you were just talking to them they really weren't bad at all. It helped if you thought about Ents, and elephants, and other large creatures that didn't mean any harm.

Rhinoceroses.

After carrying messages between the two Jotun, Justin Hammer was a real let-down. He had cracked up already-- Maria Hill was much too good for him, and probably also the Dire Wraith who had impersonated her-- and Annie was grateful he couldn't see her, because she really did not want to have to talk to him. She felt sorry for his state of babbling terror, but there wasn't anything she could do to help him. He seemed physically to be all in one piece, at least.

He was certainly better off than Dr. Strange, who still had enough magic left to be able to see Annie, despite his weeks in the inhibitor (which Annie confirmed had been made by Hammer Industries, in case Tony asked) but was having a lot of trouble concentrating well enough to put sentences together. He kept lapsing into mutterings that Annie was pretty sure were Shakespeare, and she wondered whether he had used Shakespearean curses to stop himself from saying anything else, anything that might give away SHIELD secrets or something. With that in mind, Annie didn't take it personally when he called her a "horrible shadow" and an "unreal mockery," although remembering the Shakespeare she had studied at school, she wondered whether anyone had ever told Dr. Strange it was bad luck to quote from _Macbeth._

The final prisoner was indeed Mrs. Strange, a white-haired woman. Loki had thought she might have been concealing her magic. It turned out she was also in an inhibitor that was affecting her quite differently from the way it had Loki or her husband: she didn't seem to be in any pain, and she wasn't confused, but her magic was completely out of her reach. The device was the same as the one imprisoning her husband, but whatever kind of creature she was, it worked in exactly the manner Tony Stark had been hoping for: it suppressed her ability to command her magic without actually hurting her. Loyally, Annie refused to consider the possibility that Hammer had cracked the problem Tony hadn't been able to. Since Hammer's device was doing the same thing to the doctor that Tony's had to Loki, only much less efficiently, it seemed like the difference had to be in the wearer.

Annie decided it would be rude to quiz Mrs. Strange-- Clea was her name-- about her species at a time like this, so she just passed along some information on the doctor's condition and offered to carry a message back to him. Clea accepted, although in the tone of someone used to having others fetch and carry for her. Annie carefully did not take offense, but decided that, apart from Fury, her favourite prisoner was Helblindi. Maria Hill was a rather distant third, just because Annie had to admire her stubbornness.

Well, regardless of Annie's favouritism, they were all going to get rescued as soon as possible. She conscientiously checked all the remaining cells, found them empty, and walked boldly toward the final guard and the steel door behind him. When he gave no sign of noticing her, she stopped right in front of him and had a good look at his rifle-- it didn't look like a normal rifle you saw in the movies, so maybe it did fire electronic pulses.

Then she leaned over the guard's shoulder, and whispered, "See you later, sweetheart," right in his ear. She permitted herself an evil little giggle at the way he shivered, then walked calmly through the steel door, up a flight of stairs and through a set of two doors that acted like an airlock, and found herself in the great entry hall. Moving quickly, in case the Red Skull came downstairs and caught her, she scooted out the main door onto the driveway, and then transported herself triumphantly back to join her friends.

Annie Sawyer, Avenger. It had a nice ring to it.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I assume, for purposes of this story, that the Asgardian royal family is hands-off in terms of childrearing. (Think upper-class families in Victorian England.)

When the returning Avengers opened the door of the penthouse, a great cloud of smoke rolled out.

Tony didn't hesitate: completely forgetting he wasn't suited up and therefore didn't have an air filtration system, he charged into the apparently-flaming apartment.

Only to find the air, instead of oppressively hot and smoky, was... cool. Almost clammy.

Pepper stepped out of the kitchen and smiled. "Oh, good, you're back."

Tony waved at the air, trying not to look as relieved at the sight of her as he actually was. "So we are. I take it the place isn't on fire?"

Pepper gave Tony a smile that indicated she thought he was adorable, but possibly not very bright. "No, no, of course not. Loki and George are just doing a few little experiments."

"Experiments? What with-- mustard gas?" Tony demanded. "No offense," he added hastily to Mitchell.

"None taken," Mitchell shrugged. "By the time that was used on anybody but Canadians, I was already a vampire, so it wasn't my problem." He smiled at Pepper. "What are they doing?"

Just at that moment, Loki and George appeared in the kitchen doorway, both of them looking like they'd been caught in the act. Exactly _what_ act was not immediately evident.

"How good to see you," Loki said brightly. "How was your reconnaissance mission?"

"Brilliant," Annie replied. "Mi5 will be calling any minute, to offer me a job as a spy. What are you doing here, staging _The Hound Of the Baskervilles_?"

Loki waved a hand to indicate the rolling fog. "You mean this?" Annie nodded. Loki turned the hand flat, palm-down, and lowered it in the manner of someone giving the "down" command to a dog. The fog obediently sank into the floor and dissipated. "George and I have been conducting experiments, to determine what magic I can most easily command in my current condition." He glanced sideways at Thor and went on hastily, "I mean my condition in general." Addressing the rest of the group, speaking rapidly, he explained, "There are spells that place few demands on my magic, fog being one of them, especially at night. Illusions are also relatively easy and can be very confusing to an enemy. Owing to the circumstances, I have been rather overdoing it in terms of casting magic since its return, and it would be most unfortunate to run dry in the middle of a battle."

"Loki," Thor began painfully, and then his eyes focused on Loki's throat, which bore a strange-looking, peach-coloured mark that practically wrapped around from ear to ear. "What is that?"

Loki sighed, glanced at George, who nodded, and gestured to his brother to follow him. "We should speak," he announced, leading the way into the kitchen.

"What is wrong with your throat?" Thor persisted, as soon as they were alone. He winced and added, "I mean what _else?_ " He reached out to touch the mark with a cautious fingertip, which came away marked with the same peach colour. "What is this?"

"Pepper warned me the match was not good," Loki muttered. Thor's eyes widened.

"Is that-- ?"

"Makeup, yes," Loki replied. "According to Pepper, it is called 'concealer,' although the name appears to be misleading." At Thor's raised eyebrows, Loki sighed again. "Truly, brother, it is not serious. I am fine, honestly. It is just-- to heal a bruise involves focusing the mind on a great many very tiny blood vessels. After healing my real injuries, I felt it was not a good use of my energy or magic, to use so much of it on what really is a superficial matter. I had considered placing a small glamour on my throat, but Pepper thought the makeup was worth trying."

Thor's shoulders slumped. "I cannot tell you how sorry I am-- "

Loki raised his hands placatingly, and then on second thought stepped forward and wrapped his arms around his startled brother. "I know," he crooned.

"I do not even remember what I did," Thor said miserably, mostly into Loki's shoulder. "You must have been-- "

"I confess to having had an extremely bad moment or two," Loki admitted, voice slightly muffled owing to his chin being hooked over Thor's own shoulder, "before I realized you were under an enchantment. Because, really, Thor, that was the only possible explanation. I did not for a moment think it was _you._ " Well, not after the first flash of terror and shock, which hardly counted, did it?

Loki patted Thor and stepped back to hold him by the shoulders, looking into his face. "Now, listen to me. I have been asleep for nearly the entire time since the incident, except to consume some eggs George cooked for me, which appear to have great restorative powers. I feel about as well as I have at any point since this whole adventure began." By which he meant that he now felt as though he had been run over by a small car, perhaps a two-door Fiat, as opposed to having been hit by a train. There was no need for him to go into that kind of detail. "I know you are sorry I was injured, and wish it had not happened. I certainly did not enjoy it, and if it had to happen I cannot tell you how much _I_ wish that _someone else_ had been the instrument-- " well, not any of his housemates, but that went without saying, and so he did not "-- but _you_ did _nothing._ " He shook Thor gently, for emphasis. "You are blameless. Do you hear me?" Reluctantly, Thor nodded. Loki smiled at him. "All right. Now, as a result of this very regrettable incident, George and I have drawn some conclusions about the magic of Dire Wraiths, which we need to share with the rest of the group. I know that it would have been preferable to gather this intelligence in almost any other way, but it needs to be discussed. All right?"

"All right," Thor agreed reluctantly. Loki smiled again, squeezed his brother's shoulders gently, and released him.

"Good. Let us return to the others."

When they rejoined the group, George cast an inquiring look at Loki, who nodded faintly. George made a quick thumbs-up gesture and turned away to herd the others into the living room, saying,

"How about you lot catch us up on what happened out at the hideout, and then Loki and I can tell you what we've figured out about the Dire Wraiths, okay?"

It was most unfortunate that, Annie being invisible and inaudible to most of the assembly, she was forced to relate her story in pieces which Thor or Mitchell repeated for the benefit of the others. Having exhibited considerable daring, it was a shame she could not experience the full enjoyment of telling her own story, with all the appropriate embellishments, as would be the custom of Asgard. Well, as soon as they got home again and it was only themselves, she would have to be compelled to tell it again to the housemates.

"Seriously, Mrs. Peel couldn't have done any better," Mitchell congratulated her at the end of the narrative.

"Indeed," Loki agreed, remembering that Mrs. Peel was an Avenger of a rather different vintage. And then, because he really could not help himself, he added, "And the two Jotun-- they truly did not alarm you?"

"No," Annie said candidly. "I mean, they were kind of scary _looking_ at first, but Byleistr was mostly thinking about getting home and making sure the realm was all right. And Helblindi was... really, he was _nice_. I liked him. Honestly," she insisted.

"Oh, I believe you. It is just that I have never had any dealings with a Jotun when neither of us intended the death of the other, so I was... curious." Considering the circumstances, he was unlikely ever to find himself in such a position, Loki reflected, and was unsure whether he envied Annie or not.

The fact that at least one Jotun possessed the sense to be nice to Annie did appear to confirm the not-monsters theory he had been trying to make himself believe. Because really, only a bona fide monster would be nasty to Annie.

"All right, that was my adventure," Annie said, with a smile. "Now, you and George can tell us about the Dire Wraiths."

"Very well. George and I have been reviewing my earlier interactions with our... erstwhile captive, and we believe my initial mistake was in assuming the Wraith was as frightened in his captivity as I was in mine." This was not something Loki would have admitted in any other company, but it being common knowledge there seemed little point in trying to deny it before this group. "I had better luck getting him to open up when I hit upon an appeal to his vanity, and his sense of the superiority of his own kind. It is possible that was Wilbur's flaw, rather than one common to Wraiths as a whole, but it is worth keeping in mind, as that kind of weakness can certainly lead to arrogant blunders we may be able to exploit." Well, it certainly had in Loki's case, and the thoughtful nods from the Avengers indicated that perhaps they were also reviewing similar mental errors of their own.

"Regarding the... what happened earlier," Loki went on, "it appears physical contact was necessary to place the spell upon Thor. Just before... I noticed the false Pepper take him by the arm, and 'she' was still holding his arm right up until Steve struck her with his shield."

"Good thing it was the fake me and not the real one," Pepper remarked.

"We are all glad that was so," Loki said politely. "At any rate: if we believe Wilbur's earlier assertion that most of Hydra's officers have been replaced with Wraiths, and since we also do not know how many Wraiths are in disguise within the ranks of SHIELD, it becomes very important indeed for us to, as far as possible, avoid physical contact with the enemy during our battles. Among you all, Thor would have the greatest ability to withstand a magical attack, so the fact he succumbed so quickly should be seen as a very dangerous sign of their power.

"This is to say nothing of the fact that Wilbur appears to have had little difficulty escaping from the cell even after Tony reinforced it in an attempt to foil his magic. That may indicate that the magic of Dire Wraiths takes a form unlike any with which we are likely to be familiar."

"Maybe Mrs. Strange can help us with that," Annie spoke up.

"Indeed," Loki said thoughtfully. Remembering that most of the group had not heard her, he went on, "Annie has just reminded me that Mrs. Strange's reaction to the inhibitor device was completely different from mine or that of her husband, which indicates her magic is also different, and may be enough like that of a Dire Wraith that she can offer advice."

"I didn't actually say all that," Annie demurred. Loki grinned at her before going on, more soberly,

"With reference to Wilbur's escape, he may have done so the moment his magic had recovered sufficiently, or he may have been pretending to be our prisoner all along, in hopes of gaining valuable intelligence from us. The fact he apparently could not resist taking some vengeance on me may, again, indicate something useful about a possible weakness in Wraith thinking. Also, it may be significant that Tony and Steve each killed a Wraith by striking it in the head. That may be their only true area of vulnerability, so do remember it."

"And stay out of range of the two-foot-long drill tongue," George added.

Loki nodded, surprised to realize he had nearly forgotten that detail amidst all the other alarming things they had recently learned about the Wraiths. That could not possibly be a good sign.

Steve squared his shoulders. "Okay. We don't know what time the Red Skull is going to meet with the Dire Wraiths, so-- Yes?" he interrupted himself as Loki, George, and Mitchell all looked in the same direction.

Reluctantly, Loki said, "Annie has a suggestion."

~oOo~

It was ridiculous for him to be worried, Loki reminded himself. Annie had certainly proven herself a more than capable scout, the minions of the Red Skull definitively could not see her, and even if the Red Skull himself spotted her, she was more than adept at fast getaways. To say nothing of the fact that, as she pointed out herself, she was already dead, so unless he had access to very specific supernatural weapons there was little the Red Skull could really do to her.

As he and Agent Coulson lurked in a car parked at some distance from the Hydra mansion, waiting for Annie to return with news of the Red Skull's departure, Loki worried anyway.

"Okay," Coulson said quietly. "When Annie comes back, you and I will get into position while she alerts the others. Then she'll let you know when Steve wants you to start the fog." This was all known to Loki, repetition was unnecessary, but Coulson seemed to sense Loki needed the distraction, and his calm voice was reassuring. Loki nodded, aware the movement was barely visible in the darkened car. Coulson went on, "I never realized just how handy it would be, to have a ghost on the team." Pause. "To say nothing of a magician."

"Magician" sounded like someone who did tricks at children's parties, but since it was evident that Coulson intended to be kind, Loki did not quibble over terminology. He merely replied,

"I am just glad to still have magic to contribute."

"Took a beating over the past few weeks, didn't it?" Coulson agreed in his neutral tone. "Or do you mean you're glad you got to keep it at all?"

"I meant... the first one." Loki shivered and pulled his hooded sweatshirt more tightly around himself. "Although the second is also true, and to be honest still a little surprising."

"I've been wondering about that, if you don't mind my asking. Just how _would_ you go about taking away someone's magic?" Coulson asked. It felt rather strange for Coulson to be asking questions like this-- he had always struck Loki as the type who would go and look up the information for himself. Of course, without access to the library at Asgard, Loki supposed there was nowhere for him to do so. "Incantations, or what?"

"Incantations," Loki agreed, peering out the side window as though he expected to see Annie return. "And there are particular runes that must be inscribed upon the body-- if I remember correctly, over the heart, the viscera, on the palms of both hands, and on the head. The back of the skull, I think." His right hand instinctively rose toward his chest, and he forced it back down to his lap.

"Inscribed how?" asked Coulson, beginning to sound more uneasy than curious.

Loki shrugged. "It depends on how long the effect is intended to last. For permanent suppression of magic, they must be carved deeply enough for the scar to remain."

Coulson stared. "And you're _surprised_ that your _dad_ didn't do that to you?" He sounded as nearly shocked as Coulson was ever likely to.

"Well, he is also king, and I would have earned it. In fairness, however," Loki replied, "my father has never done that to anybody. It is, obviously, a drastic and very uncommon punishment. I believe the last time it was carried out was during the reign of my grandfather. I only know about the method myself because I once looked it up, to verify a story I had been told as a young child, about an evil sorcerer who was served that way and died insane three days later."

Coulson shook his head. "That was an Asgardian bedtime story? And I thought Bambi's mother was bad. Or was it-- " his tone became distinctly hopeful-- "something you overheard from the grownups?"

"No, it was told to me. It was… You may find this hard to believe, Agent Coulson," Loki said, injecting a smirk into his voice, "but I was a difficult child. Clingy more than affectionate, anxious-- " _impossible to love_ \-- "and I slept badly, so I would be out of bed at all hours. The nursery maid-- who meant well, truly, I was actually quite attached to her-- was at her wits end with me. At one point she resorted to telling stories of monsters lurking in the dark, to try to make me stay in bed where I belonged."

"Greeeaaat," Coulson said, on a long drawling breath, and fell silent. Loki did, too, remembering being very small indeed, of waking up terribly frightened and so _cold_. He did not remember dreaming of anything, just of waking afraid and alone. If he could gather the courage, he would creep to the outer room where the nursemaid, Hildr-- who was very young, and mostly very kind, when she was not tired and impatient-- would be working on something she had not had time to do during the day while keeping track of two active little boys. He would run to her, and she would sigh and pick him up and carry him back to bed. If she was very tired he might be slapped, but it did not really hurt and being carried, even briefly, was worth it.

Sometimes, the lucky times, he would wake to hear voices speaking quietly, and find Hildr's mother, a stout comfortable woman, had come to visit her for the evening. The older woman did not mind Loki-- of course, she had not had to put up with him all day, trailing and clinging and doubtless whining-- and he would fall asleep on her lap, wrapped in her shawl and wonderfully warm.

 _"The older boy goes to sleep as good as gold. I don't know what to do with this one."  
"There's no harm in spoiling them a little, at this age."  
"He's spoiled enough already. And you can't tell me you'd have let us get away with this, when we were little!"  
"Well, I have more patience, now I'm older." _

Hildr must have taken advice from her mother, because Loki could remember later, it must have been later, peeking into the outer room, and Hildr looking up with a sigh.

 _"Come along, then. You can sit here and watch me, only don't squirm or I'll pick you with this needle."_ That had been a caution rather than a threat, and he remembered leaning sleepily against her, not exactly fighting to stay awake and not exactly pleased with having Hildr all to himself for a change, but calm and safe and… reassured. Hildr herself eventually became less sharp, less impatient, and he thought not even Thor had been disappointed when monsters disappeared from their bedtime stories, if not entirely from Loki's imagination.

And then there had been a gap when he did not remember any waking incidents-- he thought now Hildr's mother would not have been surprised-- until he and Thor began in the schoolroom, Loki very proud to be allowed to go, too, despite being younger. That first day, they had dashed back into the nursery full of triumphs to tell Hildr--

And she was gone, replaced by an older woman, Vedis, well-versed in court protocol, who was more a governess than a nursemaid, and was supposed to teach them to behave like princes. They searched the palace as well as two small boys could, but Thor and Loki never saw Hildr again.

Thor had been heartbroken and furious. Loki had not joined in his brother's noisy protests, because somehow he was not surprised, somehow this felt familiar, he should have known this would happen, it was probably his fault. Thor had become reconciled to Vedis, who naturally played up his importance as the elder prince, but Loki had regarded her with a silent loathing that never abated, one of his precocious talents apparently being for hatred. Still, he had obediently learned all she had to teach them about the ways of the court. And, as his ability to read grew by leaps, he had also learned all that the simple spellbooks had to teach him about the conjuration of slimy things into the beds-- and pockets-- of governesses.

And, once again, he had begun to wake in the night.

Looking to Vedis for comfort being out of the question, he had instead taken to scuttling across the chamber, frozen and terrified, to crawl shivering into bed with Thor-- who, scarcely waking, would wrap his arms around Loki as though he was a soft toy. Loki would fall asleep again almost immediately, sometimes waking back in his own bed, sometimes still in Thor's.

Loki had resorted to this solution almost up until Thor left the nursery, even after Vedis was replaced by Solveig, then Solveig by Etta, then Etta by Jórunnr. Loki had never been sure whether he was to blame for all these changes, or whether a short span as warden of a nursery was all anyone could stand. Loki remembered very little about these women, after Vedis it was safer to neither love nor hate them, so it would not matter when they disappeared. Some of them might even have been sympathetic to his inexplicable fears, but by then he took no chances, by then he knew Thor was the only person he could rely on, the only one he could trust. And Thor had never teased him, not then and not even later, when anyone-- well, when _Loki_ \-- would have expected him to use any ammunition available to discourage his tagalong brother. It had been a long time since Loki had thought about that.

When he was left behind in the nursery by himself--well, except for Jórunnr, who was kind, but Loki was not stupid enough to become fond of her, he knew by then she would disappear eventually-- and then later, when he was elevated to the grand chambers that had been his for the rest of his life in Asgard, he once again fell prey to those late-night panics. By then Thor was lost to him, too, but fortunately Loki was able to resort to magic, to comforting illusions, of a shaded lamp and a stout, comfortable figure in a chair, a woman whose only name was "Hildr's mother." Sometimes the figure was of Hildr herself. He realized now that it had never occurred to him to conjure his own mother into that imaginary chair.

"So, how long did you believe in monsters under the bed?" Coulson suddenly interrupted his thoughts, almost lightly, although not really as though he was teasing.

 _Until I became one myself._ Which was not entirely true, nor was it the kind of thing he should say to Coulson. Unbidden, however, another memory surfaced.

"I do not remember, but I recall one night, when Thor and I still shared a chamber… he of course knew of my fears. I apparently had let my hand fall over the side of the bed as I slept, and-- something grabbed it."

Coulson's raised eyebrows were apparent even in the dark. "Thor? I hope you turned him into a frog."

Loki smiled at the memory. "At the time I had not the command of magic to do such a thing, which is just as well because I probably would have blown him up. He surely would have gotten into terrible trouble if I had screamed the place down, but I was actually too frightened to utter a sound." He began to giggle helplessly as he remembered. "He crawled out from under my bed, and I gaping at him, undecided whether I should embrace him or try to break his nose, and he smiled as though he had done something wonderful and told me: 'I looked, and there are no monsters under your bed tonight.'" Loki broke off, both hands clamped over his mouth, trying to stifle his laughter.

"After he scared you half to death," Coulson said, in his flat voice.

"Which he did not mean to do," Loki assured him. "He woke up, lay there worrying that I might wake up frightened-- which I did, quite regularly, at that age-- and finally decided to take matters into his own hands. Had there _been_ a monster under my bed, I am confident my brother would have routed it in short order." Another gust of laughter overtook him at the memory. When he could speak clearly, he went on, "By the time he had assured himself there was nothing there to frighten me, he had quite forgotten I was asleep and might not take kindly to having him tug on my hand to get my attention."

"Superhero from the get-go, huh?" Coulson asked, something close to amusement in his level voice.

"Apparently," Loki agreed. Muffling another snort of amusement and wiping his suddenly-watery eyes, he added, "As much as I appreciated the gesture, after that I was very careful to ensure all my limbs remained under the blankets as I slept."

The remark was rewarded with what might have been a chuckle from Coulson, which fortuitously distracted Loki from his sudden wish that certain of these memories had not been quite so long forgotten.

And then Annie appeared in the back seat, and there was no longer time to think about the past.

~oOo~

It was, fortunately, a damp night, which rendered fog extremely easy to conjure. For good measure, Loki added a few owl-hoots and an occasional howl, the sort of thing calculated to evoke atavistic unease in the breast of a human. Effective, and also, from his point of view, quite amusing.

The Hydra guards were, of course, as intrepid as they were evil. It would take more than special effects to really frighten them. However, the goal was to instill confusion rather than fear, and that Loki was more than able to manage, especially when he added the illusion of figures rushing through the fog, not quite seen. His idea was that by the time the Avengers also began to move, not-quite-seen, through the fog, the guards would be having grave difficulty believing the evidence of their own senses.

Loki was not in this for the entertainment: he rather badly wanted to go into the mansion himself, to go back down to the dungeons and personally help with the rescue. To do that, however, would mean abandoning his diversionary activities outside, and the mission was too important for him to risk ruining everything on a selfish whim. Besides, there was every chance that if he revealed himself to the two captive Jotun, they would be too busy killing him to escape. This would be counter-productive for everyone and, at the very least, leave the rest of the group with no fog to cover their retreat. So: for once in his life, Loki obeyed his orders.

Protected by a glamour that rendered him almost impossible to see in the darkness and mist, Loki left Coulson in concealment and was able to move freely about the grounds, ensuring the fog was as thick and even as possible. The guards outside the building were restless, but he did not see any emerging from the mansion. Annie was taking a count inside, to see how many were still in the house.

As he passed by the post occupied by George, Clint and Natasha-- George mostly hiding, while Clint and Natasha lay in wait-- Annie appeared next to him in a hurry.

"There's at least a dozen of them inside," she reported. "Fifteen, counting the ones on the dungeon level."

"Damn," Loki muttered, and relayed this intelligence to the two Avengers, speaking in whispers. "I believe we need a diversion, one interesting enough to attract their attention."

Natasha glanced at Clint, who notched an arrow in his bow and said reasonably, "If we kill the guys out here, the ones inside are likely to come out and investigate."

George and Annie each suppressed a wince. Loki glanced in the direction of the guards who, unlike their armoured counterparts of SHIELD, wore only the foolish gray uniforms intended to evoke an earlier evil. Really, based upon the evidence of the history books, anyone who deliberately wore such garb probably deserved all he got. Also, what did they _expect_ , in such flimsy clothing? Loki's old Asgardian nightclothes would probably do a better job of stopping a blade or an arrow.

And it was not that he was sentimental about those who threw in their lot with a leader like the Red Skull, but...

"If you kill these guards, the others will be alerted that they are under attack," he pointed out, trying to match Clint's reasonable tone and aware of his friends' expressions of relief. "They may simply barricade themselves inside. Let me do something more... confusing."

This time Clint glanced at Natasha, who shrugged.

"Like what?" she asked .

Loki grinned.

"I am rather well-known for my rhinoceroses," he replied.

~oOo~

There was a fenced compound to one side of the mansion, containing about a dozen shining black sport-utility vehicles. It quite spoiled the look of that part of the grounds, but kept the SUVs secure. The two guards who patrolled that side of the building routinely checked the compound for illicit activity. Therefore, when they sensed movement within the fence, one of them called out for whoever was within to show himself.

They seemed entirely unprepared for one of the black vehicles to suddenly raise a great horned head and look at them.

Really, Loki knew the circumstances were grave and that he needed to be serious, but after the day he had had, surely no one would begrudge him a laugh. The expressions on the guards' faces had to be seen to be believed. One of them, however, immediately raised his rifle and fired an electromagnetic blast at the rhinoceros, which would not have been funny at all if it had been a real animal. In fact, Loki would have taken a dim view indeed of such an action.

As it was, Loki simply allowed the guards to see the rest of the vehicles in the compound turn into rhinoceroses, then brought the fence down and let the creatures ponderously trot across the lawn toward the driveway. By this time, the guards who had remained inside the house had come running out to see what all the yelling was about.

Loki looked around at the situation, and added a little more fog.

~oOo~

Mitchell, hiding around back with Steve and Tony, glanced up when Annie appeared beside him smothering giggles.

"What the hell is he doing?" he hissed, referring to the noise from the front of the mansion.

"Rhinos," Annie replied succinctly. "And probably Thor, by now. Let's go."

"The coast is clear," Mitchell told the two Avengers, rising to his feet. Iron Man and Captain America followed the vampire, who followed the ghost through the French doors into the library, and then into the entry hall where Annie directed them to the door that led to the dungeons. Iron Man's blasters flattened all barricades between them and the cellars, and as he blasted the doors of the cells, Captain America dealt with the guards who had remained on duty down on the dungeon level.

Annie took a moment to zap herself into Helblindi's cell.

"My friends have arrived to rescue you. They look a little weird, but they're human and they're here to help. Don't be alarmed."

Helblindi definitely looked amused. "Thank you, little one, I will try to contain my terror."

Sarcasm from a Jotun. Maybe that was something Loki could build on with them. She smiled at Helblindi and zapped herself into Byleistr's cell to repeat the message.

~oOo~

By this time, the guards outside had become aware they were under attack by more than just rhinoceroses. Their first clue was the Hulk, looming out of the fog like something from a monster movie, only with a great deal more bellowing. An understandable rush back toward the mansion was checked when Thor landed on the driveway between them and the entrance.

"Gentlemen!" he called an invitation, almost as though he had never been exiled and had not learned that fighting was a serious matter, not to be embarked upon lightly. It rather did Loki's heart good to see him.

The guards, however, were both evil and confused, but apparently not anything like stupid enough to take on Thor on one side of them and the Hulk on the other. Several of them, chivvied by rhinoceroses on their third flank, broke for the woods, apparently forgetting all about the fence.

And, of course, entirely unaware of Hawkeye and the Black Widow waiting for them. George's presence notwithstanding, there was no reason to expect either of those two to accept anyone's surrender. Loki winced, told himself he had done what he could, and let go of the rhinoceros illusion. He was about to run around the back of the house, to check on the progress of the rescue party, when Annie appeared next to Thor.

"Everyone got out through the back, and Steve and Tony are taking them into the woods to hide," she reported, her voice indicating excitement so strong that she was apparently unable to experience fear. Or to wonder why Steve and Tony were not joining the battle.

"Excellent." Thor's tone implied Annie's personal responsibility for this desirable outcome. Annie beamed and transported herself to Loki's side, both of them instinctively ducking as the Hulk hurled a limp, and one hoped merely unconscious, guard carelessly in their direction. Thor, meanwhile, darted to one side, blocking the path that could bring the remaining guards into contact with the escaping prisoners, and leaving a clear route into the mansion.

Not surprisingly, those still able to take that course did so, rushing into their fortress where, one assumed, they intended to barricade themselves and make use of whatever arsenal to which they had access. Since the plan did not involve the Avengers hanging around for a siege, Loki felt they were most welcome to do so.

Thor, meanwhile, began whirling Mjolnir. As clouds formed in the sky above them, Loki realized he and his friends had apparently been left out of one crucial part of the briefing on this mission. He also realized there was nothing he could do about what was going to happen next.

Annie looked up at the gathering storm. "What is he doing?" she asked, wide-eyed.

Loki grabbed her arm. "Don't look. Find George, and make sure he is safe. Tell him to keep his head down and remain in hiding until Thor calls us out. I will attract the attention of the-- of Bruce." Annie clearly registered something wrong in Loki's voice. She gave him a doubtful look, and he tried to smile. "Please, Annie, do it now." Annie vanished, and Loki released his concealing glamour. "Bruce! Dr. Banner!" he shouted, unsure how one addressed the Hulk when he was in this form. It did not appear to matter, since the moment his attention was captured he dropped… whatever he was slamming into the ground… and charged in Loki's direction. Since this was what Loki wanted, he did not complain. He also wasted no time in taking to his heels.

At a safe distance from the house, Loki whirled and cast a sleeping spell so potent he almost fell to his knees himself. The spell enveloped the Hulk, and for a moment a dazed and rather sweet smile lit his contorted green features, before he toppled gently to the grass, snoring peacefully, and began to change shape, the great green body turning small and vulnerable again.

Loki stood facing Bruce, the mansion outlined behind the sleeping form. He therefore was watching as the clouds boiled into a thunderhead in the sky above Thor, and a great bolt of lightning arced downward.

It struck the roof of the mansion, which erupted into a ball of flame, incinerating everything and everyone inside.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At various points I refer back to the first story in this crossover, but you don't need to have read it to follow what's happening. Also, in this universe, mythology is only stories, so when Loki refers to previous punishments, he's not talking about lip-sewing or snake venom.

The ruins of the mansion were still engulfed in flame, the last support beams collapsing as the roof fell in, the final ghostly shapes already fled to wherever they were bound, when the rest of the group emerged from cover.

Coulson appeared and knelt next to Bruce, who was still under the slumbering spell. The rescued prisoners came skirting wide around the flaming wreckage, following Steve and Tony, Mitchell bringing up the rear. And Clint and Natasha walked out of the woods with George and Annie trailing uncertainly behind, wide-eyed and gripping each other's hands.

In spite of the roar of the inferno, to Loki the world seemed to become very still as Annie looked at him, her face solemn with shock.

"Did you know he was going to do that?" she asked softly.

The truthful answer was "no," but the truth was never quite that simple: in this case the truth to Loki felt like a disavowal of his brother and what his brother had done. What he would not have done, had he seen any other alternative. Loki opened his mouth, could not think of anything to say, and closed it. He was conscious of a crisis looming, was vaguely aware of worrying his hands together, and, on the periphery of his senses, of Mitchell stepping forward to say something to Steve and Tony.

And then-- he must have stood there like an idiot for several seconds, unable to think what to say, so much for the silver tongue-- then there was a hand on his shoulder, and Steve's voice saying,

"No, Annie, he didn't know about it." The touch was so that Steve could see Annie and speak to her, not for Loki's comfort, but was still steadying. So was Steve's voice as he said firmly, "That was my call. You and George and Mitchell are civilians, and I didn't want to burden you in advance. I know Loki's not quite a civilian, but I didn't want him to feel like he was being asked to choose between the three of you and his brother." Steve squeezed Loki's shoulder briefly. "I know that was ugly, but this is a war, and we can't just leave the Red Skull's hideout and troops intact for him to come back to. If you want to get rid of ants, you have to destroy the nest." He let go of Loki and walked back to where Tony now stood with Thor. Clint and Natasha joined them.

Steve was such a gentle, kind person in himself that it was easy to forget he was also a soldier. As was Thor, of course. And so, once, had Loki been, at least as nearly as made no difference. What was curious was that Steve was correct: in the process of fitting into his new life, Loki the shapeshifter had apparently shapeshifted his own mind, and he did indeed feel, more or less, like a civilian. He could understand the action, realized intellectually that it had been necessary, had even committed similar acts he still did not number among his own crimes. And yet, there was a small part of him that was nearly as shocked as Annie and George and Mitchell.

A much larger part of him was grateful to Steve for his decision. In the past, lying to the Liesmith for his own good had not ended well, but on this occasion Loki was grateful not to have been compelled to make the choice Steve had mentioned.

Everyone stood as if frozen for a moment. And then Coulson asked calmly, "Can you wake him up?" and Loki realized he was still standing over Bruce, who appeared to be dreaming sweet dreams. Loki rather envied him, but he nodded and extended a hand to pull away the spell.

And then he was moving, angling his path so that his approach to Annie and George took him toward Thor as well. It crossed his mind that this was the second time today that his brother had been, to all intents and purposes, a weapon. The difference this time was that he had agency, and Loki could tell by his expression that he did not regret the action, only the fact it had upset Loki's friends.

There was a moment, probably not as long as it felt, when Loki was really not sure what Annie would do. He was just becoming frightened when George leaned toward her and said quietly:

"Your granddad crewed Lancasters, didn't he?"

Annie's tense shoulders suddenly loosened. "Yeah. So he did." She squeezed George's hand, then let it go and both of them walked forward to join Loki, who did not entirely understand what had just happened, but found himself suddenly able to breathe again. He had no illusions that this was completely behind them, but if there was to be a crisis it would at least not happen right now.

Steve was speaking again, his clipped tone emphasizing that any discussion of this matter would have to take place later, when they had more time for it:

"All right. Those of you who were just freed will be going with Thor." His eyes flicked over Loki and his friends. "The four of you, too. The rest of the Avengers and myself are going to find what allies we can down here, while Thor and Loki see what can be arranged with Asgard."

"I'm not going anywhere," Nick Fury announced.

"Sorry, Nick. I'm afraid we don't take orders from you at the moment," Steve replied calmly. For just a flash, Tony looked like he didn't know whether to burst out laughing or flee in terror, and then the Avengers retreated as Thor called upon Heimdall, and the Bifrost opened above them.

~oOo~

Obviously, diplomacy had continued in Asgard in their absence. Odin, and presumably Njord, were doing their best to deflect the Jotun aggression, stalling for time in the hope Thor would return with the true king and sanity could yet prevail. As it happened, when Thor and his refugees arrived, Odin was in fact away from Asgard, meeting with Njord on the matter. Upon being informed of this by Heimdall, Thor had taken control of the situation, escorting the former prisoners to the envoys' hall and dispatching a guard to fetch servants to look after them, as well as healers for Strange and Stern. The two Jotun had been conveyed to a separate chamber, while Thor took Loki and his housemates aside.

"Mitchell, George, I would take it kindly if you would assist our guests in getting settled," Thor said, with the perfect calm of one who feels comfortable with command, and also at peace with his recent actions. "There is little to be done with them until Father returns from Vanaheim." He turned to Loki and Annie. "I must speak to Byleistr and Helblindi. Annie, would you be willing to accompany me?"

Annie looked startled, glanced at Loki for input. He made a palms-up gesture that was not quite a shrug.

"At the moment, apart from Thor, you may be the only person in Asgard they have any reason to view with goodwill," he pointed out. "You must do as you think best, but your presence may actually be... reassuring, at least to Helblindi." The idea of a Jotun needing reassurance felt very strange in Loki's mind, but it was clear from Annie's expression that she found the notion perfectly reasonable.

"Okay. Yes. I'll come with you," she told Thor, who smiled.

"Thank you, Annie. Loki… you must also do as you think best. You may wish to accompany us, but if you prefer not to, or think it would be unproductive, that is your decision. If that is the case, George and Mitchell could surely benefit from your assistance."

Loki chewed his lower lip, grateful the only persons present were those he trusted most. He could say no. It really might be best for him to stay out of the way, given everything else that must be done and thought of. He might prove an unhelpful distraction. In fact, even if he refused to confront the Jotun simply because he was still too afraid of them to do so, he was at liberty to say as much, and he knew no one here would think less of him.

But.

This might be his only chance to speak to any Jotun, unless he took his life in his hands and journeyed to their realm, and unfortunately he knew he was not courageous enough, or self-sacrificing enough, to commit suicide-- especially not in that manner.

He had told himself that it did not matter if the Jotun never knew of his role in assisting them, but that was untrue. He did want them to know. He had no illusions of being forgiven, and indeed what he had done could not be forgiven by the king on behalf of the injured parties, anyway. But he wanted-- needed, really-- for the Jotun to know he was sorry. It might do them no good, might indeed only make them angrier for the stupidity and the waste, but perhaps at least knowing their assailant was not triumphing in their disaster would be... something.

Loki nodded. "I will accompany you. Although, if you consider my presence has become an unwelcome distraction, you must say so and I will withdraw. Agreed?"

Thor smiled, the same smile with which he had once announced the absence of monsters under the bed. "Agreed."

~oOo~

Byleistr and Helblindi were waiting calmly when Thor entered the chamber, followed by Annie and finally Loki. Loki had never made much effort to distinguish between one Jotun and another, but he recognized Byleistr as the shorter and broader of the two. There was a brute vitality about the king that, if he applied himself to the exercise, might have reminded Loki of his brother. Helblindi was taller, leaner, narrow of face and more thoughtful of aspect. Loki found it difficult to judge age in Jotun, but he thought he would have known without being told that Helblindi was much older than Byleistr.

Thor inclined his head to the Jotun king in a gesture of carefully-calibrated respect, acknowledging the ruler of another realm without in any way implying subservience. Once, Mitchell had conveyed the same message to Odin by persistently addressing him by the Midgardian honorific of "your Majesty."

Byleistr, conscious of being at least a guest, if not frankly a prisoner again, returned the courtesy with a stiff nod of his own. Helblindi, as befitted one of lower station, made a slightly deeper bow, one echoed by Loki and, after a moment's hesitation, Annie, who did not seem to know whether to bow or curtsy.

"My greetings to you, Byleistr-King," Thor said formally. "I welcome you to Asgard as my guest."

"I thank you, Thor son of Odin, for your hospitality," Byleistr replied, with equal cool formality. "You have my gratitude, and that of Jotunheim, for my freedom and that of my councilor." Despite his impassive tone, Loki could feel the curdle in his voice, his distaste at owing gratitude to an enemy. Understandable. Behind him, old Helblindi glanced at Annie with a brief smile, incongruous on a Jotun face.

Neither of the Jotun looked at Loki, apparently seeing Thor's second Midgardian companion as insignificant. Loki did not allow himself to feel slighted, because the longer he was ignored, the longer he had to compose himself, to present an impassive outward appearance. It could not be denied that his first reaction to the proximity of the Jotun was of almost unreasoning fear. Loki did not think he had been this afraid of the Jotun warriors who had surrounded their party on the day of Thor's banishment, and he had been frightened nearly to the point of tears then. It was both ridiculous and shameful, particularly since events proved he was himself the one who should be feared.

Ridiculous and shameful it might have been, but Loki could not deny the way his heart was hammering in his chest. He was able to exert enough physical control over himself to steady his breathing, but really, it was just as well his Aesir disguise featured an unusually pale complexion.

It would have been nice if he could have blamed Hildr, and her stories of monsters, for his terror, but he knew that could not be the case. As a child, Loki was quite sure his fear of the Jotun had not been much worse than Thor's, and the difference was only as much as could be explained by Loki's morbidly imaginative disposition. He had certainly outgrown such fears at about the same rate as his brother, had not carried unreasoning terror into adulthood.

He was afraid now because of what he had learned about himself, what he allowed himself to know in his mind but had never really accepted in his heart. He was not afraid of Byleistr and Helblindi, Loki told himself. All he feared, and all he had to fear, was Loki, and Loki only.

Thor glanced at his brother, his expression calm but unreadable, and turned back to Byleistr.

"I do not know how much you have been told about the situation that now exists on Jotunheim," he said. Byleistr inclined his head, and Thor went on, "An impostor has taken your place, and another that of Helblindi. They have brought your realm to the brink of war with Asgard and Vanaheim, apparently for the purpose of preventing those realms from interfering in a planned attack on Midgard. It is of vital importance that we return you to Jotunheim as quickly as possible, unmask the impostors, and avert what would be a costly war on both sides."

"On both sides, but especially ours," replied Byleistr, with unusual candour for a ruler.

"Yes," Thor agreed. "With things as they are, there is little doubt Jotunheim would suffer greatly in such a conflict. Midgard aside, Asgard has no desire to see that happen."

Byleistr looked skeptical, and old Helblindi coughed. "I beg pardon my king, but-- a question."

"Speak," Byleistr said shortly.

Helblindi did. "Both the prince of Asgard, and-- " he inclined his head-- "his friend Annie, when she found us in the cells, spoke of an impostor. Am I correct in assuming that knowledge is what has so far stayed the hands of both the Allfather, and Njord of Vanaheim?"

"Yes," Thor said. "The Allfather, at least, has no wish to see your people used as pawns."

Helblindi made a gesture that reflected dignified gratitude for such a reasonable attitude. "May I inquire, then-- how did you come to realize the existence of this impostor? It seems to me that we owe great thanks to whatever intelligence agent made this discovery."

Thor smiled, not quite triumphantly. "Credit for that must go to my brother, Loki." He turned his head in an unmistakable gesture, and Loki found himself in the entirely unwelcome role of the focus of attention.

Byleistr's face went very still as his crimson eyes came to rest upon Loki, taking his measure in his innocuous Midgardian garb. "Indeed? Odin's mad younger son?" Despite the words, his tone was carefully inoffensive. Even so, Loki felt heat rush through his body, to his extremities and all the way to the roots of his hair.

"The same," he replied quietly.

Byleistr inclined his head. "And what causes Odin's mad younger son to suddenly feel such concern for the Jotun?" The king's tone was no longer entirely inoffensive.

Loki worried his lower lip between his teeth. "I realize I cannot repair the harm I visited upon your people, but I... I deeply regret my actions, and I wished to do something to express my remorse."

Byleistr looked disbelieving. "You ask us to _forgive_ you?"

 _Yes._ "No," Loki replied quickly. "I know... that is impossible. I wished to make a gesture. It is a small gesture only, but all I could manage."

Helblindi's eyes were fixed on Loki, but he addressed his king: "Preserving us from war on two fronts is perhaps more than a small gesture."

Byleistr also continued to stare at Loki as he replied: "What he did to our realm was also more than a small gesture."

"Yes," Loki interjected, and in the misery of his fresh awareness of the enormity of what he had done, he heard himself offer: "If you wish it, I will return to Jotunheim with you, and accept whatever punishment you think fitting."

"Loki-- " Thor began, but was drowned out by both Jotun:

"No," Byleistr said sharply, and Helblindi echoed with equal urgency, "No. If you truly feel any concern for the people of our realm, you will stay away." Loki's face apparently reflected his bewilderment, because Helblindi glanced at his king and explained, more temperately:

"Before all this occurred, there were meetings between Byleistr-King and Odin Allfather. Odin was... more sympathetic to the problems of our realm than we had perhaps expected, based on past experience."

"No one could have reached an accord with Laufey," Byleistr said flatly, but with scrupulous fairness. "Odin cannot be blamed for that."

"Indeed," Helblindi agreed, mildly, and went on, "Agreements were reached, to offer relief to our people. It may be hoped that, with the... current difficulties... resolved, this assistance may still be offered." The old Jotun looked at Loki's expression of confusion, and said almost kindly, "The Allfather placed two conditions upon his aid. The first was that Jotunheim should maintain peace with the other realms. The second-- "

"-- was the life of his son," Byleistr interjected gruffly.

"Yes," Helblindi agreed. "He claimed that you were afflicted with madness, when you attacked our realm, and assured us that when your wits returned you would be remorseful." With a sideways glance at his king, he added, "It appears he was correct." Byleistr looked unimpressed. Loki did not blame him. Helblindi went on, "Regardless, the Allfather was very clear that assistance from Asgard was contingent upon no harm coming to you through us. Stay away from Jotunheim. If you go there, someone will kill you, and everyone will suffer for it."

"I understand," Loki said quietly, unsure what to feel. Surely it was unspeakably high-handed of Odin, to forbid the Jotun's desire for justice. At the same time, of course, the fact Odin had made practically no other demands seemed to indicate the ones he had were of special importance. It was of course ridiculous to place Loki's personal safety on the same level as that of entire realms, but...

"Odin also told is his son had been banished," Byleistr remarked, in a tone so carefully neutral it was now on the far side of offensive.

"As you can perhaps tell by his clothing, my brother now resides on Midgard," Thor spoke up. "His presence here is my responsibility, not his. The insights he has to offer will be of benefit to us all."

Byleistr inclined his head in a way that suggested he chose not to argue the point. Thor, fortunately, made his own choice, not to take offense. There was an understandably uncomfortable pause before Helblindi spoke again:

"We had begun to ask how you discovered the existence of the impostor."

Loki had begun to wonder exactly how old Helblindi really was. His air of calm seemed genuine, as though instead of concealing his revulsion at Loki, he actually did not feel any. Perhaps he had seen so many terrible things that nothing shocked him anymore. Perhaps he had seen worse. Or perhaps he was just particularly good at dissembling.

Regardless, there was no reason not to believe in the apparent liking he had taken to Annie. Also, Loki felt rather strongly the Jotun had heard quite enough of his voice for the moment. He turned to her and gestured slightly.

"You want me-- ? Oh. Yes." Annie looked flustered for a moment, then drew herself up. "Loki and I and some of our other friends were on Vanaheim-- it's quite a long story and I don't think we have time for it," she interrupted herself apologetically, "but the same people who kidnapped you also captured Loki, and held him prisoner too. He was hurt badly enough Thor wanted to find him a safe place to recover, and the, the Vanir king agreed to take us in.

"Anyway, in talking with Thor's Asgardian friends, we found out about the trouble between Asgard and Vanaheim, and Jotunheim. Thor had told us, quite some time ago, that, that Byleistr-King-- " Annie nodded respectfully in his direction-- "seemed like a reasonable person, not the sort of king who'd start a war for no reason. Especially not with the country, I mean the realm, already in such bad shape. And that made Loki think there was something else going on, maybe that something was, was goading or coercing you, or something."

"You give us a remarkable amount of credit, considering what monsters we are," Byleistr could not refrain from interrupting, addressing Loki. Annie glanced at Loki's face and took control of the interaction again:

"Well, he's been living with me and a couple of our friends on Earth-- Midgard-- for quite a while now. I'm a ghost-- a spirit-- our friend George is a creature called a werewolf, who turns into a ravening beast when the moon is full, and our other friend Mitchell is a vampire, so if he's not careful he starts getting thirsty for the blood of humans. We're all monsters, but we try hard not to be, you know, monstrous." Annie shrugged, which in Annie was more a wiggle of the shoulders, accompanied by fluttering hands. "I think maybe that's... made a difference?" She suddenly dropped the harmless-flutterer attitude and addressed Byleistr earnestly: "I don't know if he's a different person from the one who, who did what he did, but I do know he would never do it again, and I'm absolutely sure he sees things differently now. Really."

Without giving Byleistr a chance to respond, Annie went hurriedly on,

"Anyway, we were on Vanaheim, and Loki was sure there was something fishy about the way the Jotun king was acting, and then we found out there was a delegation from Jotunheim coming to Vanaheim. So Loki decided to investigate. To see if maybe there was something that could be done, to stop things before they got to the point of warfare. He wanted to protect Asgard, of course, but he was thinking of Jotunheim, too, of the people who lived there. That, if the king had gone mad or, or was being pushed into something, maybe he could find a way to help."

Neither Byleistr nor Helblindi argued with what they had to see as a more-than-charitable assessment of Loki's intentions, probably reluctant to disabuse Annie of her illusions.

"So Loki and I, and another friend of ours, we disguised ourselves as servants and got into the Jotun delegation's rooms. Loki was searching the king's chamber, and he got caught."

Helblindi looked enlightened-- really, Loki thought, it was remarkable how quickly one could learn to see actual expressions on the faces of the giants, if one really looked at them. Turning to Loki, Helblindi guessed:

"He touched you, and you were not burned. Is that what happened?"

Loki stared at the old Jotun, and suddenly had to squelch a nearly irresistible desire to laugh. Apparently he was the most self-centred creature in all the Nine Realms, and believed that whatever he knew, whatever was foremost in his own mind, was also known to everyone else.

Apparently, he was not the only one Odin lied to.

Byleistr and Helblindi did not know who he was. Odin had not told them. He had defended his insane son, had done his best to protect him, but he had not revealed the truth of Loki's origins. Which was, of course, tactful of him: if one is engaged in peace talks with another race, it is hardly polite to explain that the reason one's child has gone mad and engaged in mass murder was because he discovered he was _one of you--_

Thor's hand was on Loki's shoulder, and Thor's voice in his ear said urgently,

"These meetings happened before the Bifrost was repaired, before you returned to Asgard and Father spoke to you. After all the harm his lies had done, and knowing how distressed you were at... at things going on behind your back-- "

Loki turned to stare at Thor, the desire to laugh suddenly gone. Because that was it, was it not? Yes, he had been horrified to learn he was a "monster." He had been sure it was the explanation for his lifelong impression that his parents did not love him. But at least as much as horror, he had felt anger and humiliation at the realization that, all this time, there were things about himself, vital things, unknown to him and common coin to others. Never mind the "others" were only his parents: he had been furious at the idea of that withheld information, of being at such a disadvantage, at the thought of their private mockery of the deluded creature, the dupe, endlessly, hopelessly trying to win their affection, to really be loved--

Ironic, of course, and hypocritical too, that the silver-tongued liesmith should be so offended by someone else lying to _him._ And of course he knew now that his worst imaginings were only that, imaginary. But still...

Thor spoke again. "He never intended your banishment to be permanent, Loki. Your first return, when Heimdall brought you, was unexpected, but Father always believed you would come back one day, and he did not want you to once again have to wonder what others knew, that you did not, about yourself. I believe that is why he dealt with the situation... as he did."

Thor referred to the very public revelation of all these secrets, to the way Odin had brought Loki before a court that believed it was about to see him disgraced and punished, and had instead found itself first hearing Loki confess to recent actions that were very nearly heroic... and then to the Allfather admitting to miscalculations and mistakes, and also professing genuine love for Loki, wayward and vicious though he had turned out.

It had, naturally, not been a pleasant experience, at least to begin with, though by the end of the audience Loki had forgotten there was anyone else present but his loved ones, had really not cared who else was there to hear. And when it was over, it was over: the entire court knew as much as Odin felt they needed to, of his own intentions and of his son's origins. Rumours had naturally been running wild since Loki's fall, and it seemed Odin had felt the best way to deal with them was to have one great clearing of the air.

Loki might have preferred to have one audience with his family, in private, and then the other before the court, but he could see his father's reasoning: given the court's ( _perfectly justified_ ) view of him as a treacherous liar and sorcerer, there would surely have been an assumption that Loki had, in the private meeting, somehow bewitched the king into forgiving him, into claiming before the court a love he did not feel. The fact the public audience had been their first contact, and Loki-- fresh from the healing rooms and still shaky after a nearly-mortal injury-- was visibly as surprised, as confused, as anyone, was clearly intended to show that Odin, and not Loki, had controlled the encounter. That Odin, and not Loki, was responsible for what Odin said.

Whether it had worked was a question Loki did not care to answer. Whether it had worked probably did not even matter. Loki had disliked and distrusted the court of Asgard for at least as long as it had disliked and distrusted him, and he thought he was honest when he told himself he did not care what it thought of him. However, it was apparent from Thor's words that Odin had felt Loki should be at least among the first to hear Odin's explanations of what he had done.

And that meant these explanations had not been given the Jotun, who met with Odin before any of this occurred. As far as they were concerned, Odin's younger son had gone mad and Odin, as any father would, was doing his best to protect his blood.

Thor squeezed Loki's shoulder gently. "It is your right to say what you will, to tell what you will. Whatever you think you should." Loki met his brother's eyes and was aware it was Thor speaking, not the prince of Asgard. It was possible Odin would be furious, if Loki revealed his secret to the Jotun. But it was indeed _his_ secret, and _his_ right to decide who should know it.

And with regard to Odin's anger-- what did he really fear? Why had he spent his life telling any lie that occurred to him in order to deflect it? It was not fear of punishment, not really-- he had been punished before this, and had lived. He had been afraid of Odin's anger because he believed, if his father was angry, if he became cold and dismissive and made that _noise_ when Loki tried to speak to him... it meant all love was lost. It meant Loki would have to begin all over again, painfully coaxing his father to feel affection for him once more, and trying to figure out how, this time, to keep it.

Well, if nothing else, Loki realized, he had learned one thing from all this: his parents' love was not so flimsy as all that. If they still loved him _now_ , after everything he had done to make them hate the very thought of him, surely nothing would change it.

Odin might be very angry indeed, when he found out what Loki had done, but it would not be permanent.

Loki glanced at Thor, and then Annie, and turned to Helblindi who still waited for an answer to his question. Before he could lose courage, Loki said rapidly,

"He touched me-- he grabbed me by the arm-- and I was indeed burned. And that is how I knew there was something wrong." As he spoke, Loki extended a hand to Helblindi, who even now remembered Odin's demands, and drew back. "I will not be harmed, I promise you," Loki insisted.

Apparently there was no tradition on Jotunheim, of the shaking of hands or clasping of forearms. Helblindi looked doubtfully at Loki's proffered hand, then reached cautiously out with his own huge one and brought it up, in a cradling gesture, under Loki's. Loki allowed his palm to rest in Helblindi's, then held his breath and resisted the urge to close his eyes.

The first thing he felt was a sensation of... not quite cold, but coolness, sweeping up his arm, rather like the feeling he had when Annie leaned against him as they watched television together. It was not unpleasant, really, when you thought of it like that.

And then his hand turned blue. He watched, made himself look, as his nails darkened, his skin turning dusky as the pinkish undertones reversed, and then the colour was washing past his wrist up his arm--

\-- and Helblindi snatched his hand away with a startled oath, and stared at Loki.

"Who _are_ you?" It was Byleistr, not Helblindi, who spoke. The councilor, the old Jotun who had lived too long to be surprised or horrified by Loki's crimes, was staring at him now as though struck dumb. And then he reached out again, his hand so large it made Loki's look like that of a child, and without thinking Loki took it, and felt the cold blue fingers close gently around his own.

A moment later his other hand was blue, too, and presumably the rest of him, and both Helblindi and Byleistr looked as shocked as Loki knew he had himself, that day on Jotunheim.

Annie-- who had, of course, seen George turn into a _werewolf_ \-- was looking up at Loki with a thoughtful expression. Then she reached up and pushed a strand of black hair away from his blue forehead, and remarked,

"I think I expected you'd look like Helblindi, only smaller. It's funny isn't it, that you still have so much hair? I wonder why?"

"That is indeed one of many questions," Loki agreed, and found himself once again suppressing the urge to laugh.

But only for a moment. And then he made himself look at Thor, who had never seen this transformation before, either. He did not think he and Thor had ever talked about it, about what-- _who_ \-- he was, not really. There was still such a list of things he and Thor had not yet talked about, not really.

Although... he almost seemed to remember... something. Thor's hand resting on his head. A feeling of safety.

He was afraid to look at Thor, because if he did, and saw horror or hatred--

"It really is curious," Thor said, looking fascinated, and as though he did not realize he was smiling. "It is the first time I have ever seen you take on another form, and yet still remain yourself." He reached out, just as unselfconsciously as Annie had, and Loki drew back.

"Don't," Loki protested quietly. "I'll hurt you."

"But not badly," Thor replied serenely. Still, perhaps in deference to Loki's concern, instead of his fingertips, he brushed the back of his knuckles against the line of his brother's jaw. Then, unhurriedly, he took his hand away, flexing his fingers against the cold. "I think, even if I had not seen the transformation, I would still recognize you. Is that not so, Annie?"

Annie nodded, and then she, too, smiled. "You really do still look like yourself."

Byleistr tried again, voice rough. "Will you tell us who you are?"

Loki took a deep breath. "I am indeed a son of Odin, but I was not born so. I was born the son of Laufey."

Byleistr drew back slightly. "Laufey? That is impossible. Laufey's child-- "

"-- died with his mother," Helblindi said, his fingers tightening around Loki's, not quite to the point that it hurt. Apparently Frost Giants could not turn pale, but the old Jotun looked stunned as he went on, "Laufey decided to expose him, as a sacrifice to the gods of war. Or, rather, that is what he claimed."

Loki had heard this story before, at second-hand: during that first round of peace talks, Helblindi had apparently let his guard down at a feast and allowed Thor to draw him into reminiscence. Thor had later told Loki the story, which represented all Loki knew about his own brief life on Jotunheim, and about the mother he was born to.

Helblindi, still holding Loki's hand as though he had quite forgotten he was doing so, repeated himself: "The baby died with his mother, Gunnlod. Laufey's queen. Laufey murdered her when she tried to prevent the death of the child, and then the baby was abandoned in the temple, beside his mother's body. Odin's bodyguard found the dead queen and buried her. The child was buried with her. He must have been."

"He was not," Loki insisted quietly, finding himself suddenly in the curious position of being nothing like the most distressed person involved in a discussion of the fact he was a Frost Giant. He could not understand why Helblindi was so upset. "He-- _I_ \-- was found, alive, by Odin, and taken back to Asgard. I was raised as his son." They looked scarcely more enlightened, until Loki fumbled on, "I have certain magical abilities. Among other things, I am a shapeshifter, and so I took on an Aesir form. It was involuntary, and until very recently I did not know I had any other."

"You are Laufey's son," Byleistr said quietly, and his tone might have made Loki anxious, if Loki had taken a moment to think through what that fact might mean to Byleistr.

"He is Gunnlod's child," Helblindi insisted. "You are old enough to remember her, I think. Your mother was her kinswoman."

"Yes, I remember her," Byleistr agreed, finally seeming to realize there was something wrong with his councilor. "She was very kind."

"She was a great queen," Helblindi said, his voice shaking, his red eyes directed at Loki, but somehow looking through him. "Her foremost concern was for the people of the realm. Even married to the warlord Laufey, she did what she could to ease their lot. And still, I believe she was never happier than when, late in life, she became a mother. Laufey was disgusted when the child was born a… but she loved him dearly."

"It could not have been cause for much rejoicing, one would think," Loki spoke up, conscious of deliberately poking himself in a place that would hurt.

Helblindi focused on him, blinking. Surprisingly kindly, he explained,

"You must understand, it is not easy to raise a child on our realm. Still less so in wartime. Even less when the child is tiny and fragile. So yes, there is cause for sorrow, when a child is born and the parents, after all their hopes, know there is little chance he will survive to adulthood. It can be done-- when I was a boy I knew a mother who raised _two_ such children-- but it is uncommon, and heartbreak is to be expected. Gunnlod, however... loved you very much. She would not have changed anything about you. It was Laufey... "

"I was not what he had in mind, as an heir," Loki said.

"No," Helblindi replied simply. "I think he already had it in his mind to remarry, but... Gunnlod had been the wife of his predecessor, who died without a direct heir. Laufey was powerful enough to seize the throne, and he persuaded... compelled... Gunnlod to accept him, which helped legitimize his accession in the eyes of the people. She was greatly loved. She was also much older than he, and I believe he had it in mind that she would predecease him, and he would marry again and an heir would be born to him. He was not expecting you, although of course he would have been pleased if you had been-- "

"Normal," Loki suggested.

Helblindi sighed. "If you will. At any rate, the last thing he wanted was for you to live, for a child like you to grow up and be heir to the throne. If he had been patient, you might simply have died anyway, but he did not wish to take chances, and so he hit upon the idea of his... great sacrifice. The queen knew he was planning something." Helblindi's crimson eyes darkened. "And she came to me, who had loyally served her first husband, to ask for help." Loki felt Annie take hold of his arm. "She asked me to help her, to take you away and hide you, or to help her escape with you." Helblindi sighed. "I loved her, as my queen and also... But I knew what Laufey was capable of, and I was too afraid of him to agree. And so, of course, she tried to protect you herself, and there was an end to her." There was a long silence, before the old Jotun said quietly, "And then the war was lost, and the Casket of Eternal Winters, and Laufey was too wrapped up in hatred and fantasies of vengeance to give much thought to the succession, so he never married again. Really, that was surely a mercy for the realm.

"And now, all these years later, here you are: the child who was betrayed, whose mother was betrayed, come back to take his revenge. Really, if there were any poets left alive on Jotunheim, it would make quite a story."

"You give me far too much credit," Loki said uncomfortably. "I knew nothing of my mother, of this story, when-- "

"But you knew you were Jotun, and you knew you had been discarded, and that no one had tried to protect you," Helblindi replied implacably. "You had to know that much."

"That hardly… that is not an excuse," Loki insisted. He had not been thinking about that at all. He was sure he had not.

"No, it is not," Helblindi agreed. "You say you did not know you had another form. You were never told you were Jotun?" Loki shook his head. "And you learned the truth-- when?"

"Three or four days before… my attack on your realm," Loki muttered.

"Ah," Helblindi murmured. Without taking his eyes off Loki-- and really, the steady regard was no longer unsettling, it was beginning almost to be reassuring-- the old councilor addressed his king: "The explanation of temporary madness almost begins to make sense."

Byleistr, without acknowledging the remark, demanded, "What did Odin intend to do with you?"

"Nothing," Loki replied, and whatever Byleistr-King thought of the answer, Loki was relieved to realize _he_ believed it. "It was an impulse, an instinct. He found a lost infant, and picked me up, and I changed so that I looked Aesir. And since no one else wanted me, he took me for his own."

"He knew who you were," Byleistr pointed out.

"Yes. And he did try to think of a plan, to use me to benefit Asgard." It was curious how things changed, how the idea that had made a red mist descend upon his brain could now slide so readily from his tongue and not hurt at all. "I believe he thought it his duty, as king, to do so. But I had been discarded and was believed dead, and was a runt, besides. Laufey still lived and thrived. And meanwhile, I was Odin's child-- an odd unlikable child perhaps, but his, and loved in spite of it. And after a while he realized no workable plan would come to him, and so he abandoned the plans and kept me instead."

"And did not tell you what you were," Byleistr insisted.

Loki shrugged. "He thought to protect me."

 _He did not want you to feel different._ Those had been his mother's words, at the side of the sleeping king, after Loki had fought down his panic and revulsion enough to dissemble, to pretend to be calm, to pretend not to be horrified and terrified and angry. He might actually have begged for reassurance, if he had not been so sure none would be forthcoming, his mother sitting across the bed from him, out of his reach as always, so beautiful and so cool, and he had tried his best to make his surface reflect hers.

And perhaps that was his mistake. He might have done better to give in again to the urge to scream and cry, even in front of a being he feared might actually be his enemy, might never have cared about him at all. Perhaps, if he had not seemed so self-controlled, his mother would have thought to comfort him, might have replaced her claim of ownership ( _"we are your parents"_ ) with some sort of assurance of love. He must be a very good liar indeed, that she did not for a moment guess he might need for once to hear such a thing. For her not to know that he felt "different" every moment of every day, and had done so for as long as he could remember.

Byleistr inclined his head slightly, and Loki wondered whether the Jotun king found Aesir expressions as difficult to read as Loki had found Jotun ones.

And then he remembered he did not, at the moment, have an Aesir face.

"Whatever he meant to protect you from, it does not appear to have worked," the king remarked.

"Parents are not always to blame for the flaws of their children," Loki replied evenly. "I have a great many weaknesses of character that are no one's responsibility but my own. I accidentally learned of my origins at a time when I was already troubled, and the catastrophic outcome cannot be blamed on anyone but me."

Loki was quite aware this was inadequate, but he could think of nothing to add and so he returned to the original point of the discussion:

"I have no words to tell you how sorry I am for what I did. Instead, I sought to prove it with actions, and that is how I stumbled upon the truth about the impostor-king. The shapeshifter who took your place knew that his touch should burn what he thought was a Vanir, and so he ensured that it did. As soon as I was able, I took this information to the Allfather, who recognized the danger to his own people and to yours, and reacted accordingly. My friends and I then returned to Midgard, where we have been trying to foil the plot against Midgard, and to rescue you so that you might set things right in Jotunheim. I stumbled upon the truth of your whereabouts, and Annie acted as a scout, to lead the rescue party to you, and all of us participated in the final rescue." He lifted his shoulders slightly. "And there my story comes to an end."

Helblindi suddenly realized he was still holding Loki's hand, and released it. Loki felt warmth stealing back into his flesh, though he had not missed it when it was absent, and watched the blue recede, hiding beneath his pale Aesir skin.

"Why do you do that?" Byleistr asked abruptly. At Loki's interrogative look, he clarified, "Why do you hide your Jotun form like that?"

"It is not voluntary," Loki replied, stifling the urge to snap that it was hardly any business of Byleistr, whether he chose the form that had taken him in over that which had thrown him away.

"The false Dr. Strange, who after all was a shapeshifter himself and might have been truthful, suggested that it might be related to his age when Father found him," Thor spoke up helpfully, then glanced at Loki's mystified face. "I am sorry, brother, I see you do not remember. You were still unwell when we had this conversation. Perhaps you remember the parrots?"

"I do seem to remember something about parrots," Loki admitted, after a moment's thought.

Thor smiled. "He spoke of imprinting on the new form, of taking it on as though it was natural. Perhaps, as I say, he spoke the truth."

"That would be most inconvenient for you, if you choose to press your claim to Laufey's throne," Byleistr remarked, his voice strained.

"To what?" asked Thor.

"My what?" echoed Loki.

"If you are indeed Laufey's heir-- " Byleistr began. Loki was nothing like respectful enough of the king's speech to allow him to finish that sentence.

"Laufey's heir? I? Of course I am not. I think he made that rather clear, when he murdered my mother and left me to starve or freeze or be eaten by predators," Loki snapped. And then he collected himself, realized that of course Byleistr had a right to be upset about this revelation, as much as he had. Byleistr, however, did not appear to be contemplating homicide as a solution to his problem. Yet.

More reasonably, Loki went on, "Laufey's actions explicitly removed me from the succession. You, Byleistr, are acknowledged as king, and I am sure you were chosen by means that are accepted as fair and just by the people of your realm." Or not, Loki admitted to himself. He kept forgetting that absolute monarchies do not hold general elections. Which was not his problem-- his problem was reassuring Byleistr that he, Loki, was no threat to his rule, and would not need to be eliminated, some time when Thor was not there to protect him. "Do you really think I, the patricide son of a hated king, who was raised Aesir and who tried to _destroy your realm_ , pose any threat to your throne? Really, if you are ruling so badly that _I_ begin to look like the better bargain…"

"You were raised by a king, and might find yourself wishing to rule. Somewhere," Byleistr argued.

"Tried it!" Loki replied, his tone desperately frivolous. "Hated it! Made an absolute hash of it! I am simply not cut out for rule, even for short periods when my father is in the Odinsleep. Anyone will tell you so. I am not a very responsible character, and besides, I feel much more useful on Midgard, protecting infant humans from supernatural threats and tidying up their messes. Also, I do not thrive on being hated, even deservedly, which I certainly must be on Jotunheim. No. I would give you my word, if I thought it had any value, but since it does not let us just say that if I ever do try to stir up your people, you are welcome to kill me then."

"I was not contemplating killing you," Byleistr grumbled.

"Well, then, I apologize for putting words in your mouth or thoughts in your head. The idea generally occurs to those who see someone as a threat to their throne," Loki said, resolutely not looking at Thor. "At any rate, you need not worry about me. If I begin to lust for power, I will form a political party and get myself elected Prime Minister. I am sure a few rounds of being shouted at in the House of Commons during Question Time would cure me."

Really, Jotun faces were not hard to read at all-- Byleistr's confusion was plain to see, but he did look as though a nasty uncomfortable idea had perhaps been nipped in the bud. Good. Loki knew it would be justice, for him to die at Byleistr's hands, but that did not mean he wanted to. And besides, it would only cause trouble.

Thor looked relieved they were dropping the subject, even more relieved when a guard appeared at the door to announce the return of the Allfather. "We must meet with him," Thor decided, "to discuss the manner of your return to Jotunheim and how the impostor will be unmasked."

"It is probably best if I leave you," Loki suggested quietly. Thor looked conflicted, but he did not object, nor did either of the Jotun. Loki was unable to resist repeating, once again, "I am inexpressibly sorry, for what I did to your realm and your people."

"Almost I begin to believe you," said Byleistr, thoughtfully.

"You are not the only one who is sorry," Helblindi murmured. Loki took that as his cue to withdraw.

He and Annie made their way down the corridor, to the rooms where the other former prisoners were being settled. To their mutual relief, Mitchell and George were sitting out in the hallway on the floor. As far as Loki could tell, they were discussing the shine on the marble floor and how it might have been accomplished without the aid of the polishing machines in use upon Midgard. Loki had caught himself wondering the same thing.

"Hey," Mitchell exclaimed, looking up with a smile that was mirrored by George. "How are you?"

Loki shrugged. "It is hard to say. No one expressed the wish to kill me, which indicates greater forbearance and mercy on the part of the Jotun than I was ever led to expect. However, I think it unlikely I will ever be welcomed back to-- " _visit Gunnlod's grave_ \-- "attend Byleistr's birthday party. At the moment, Thor has taken them to meet with Father. From there I assume they will return to Jotunheim, so Annie and I came away. Are the guests settling in?"

"Well, Nick Fury and Maria Hill seem to be plotting the downfall of whoever took over SHIELD, but that probably means they're feeling better," George spoke up. "Everyone else just seems grateful to be out in one piece. The healers are having a look at them all, so we thought we'd step outside and wait for you."

"I think Byleistr and Helblindi are, too. Grateful, I mean," Annie spoke up, glancing at Loki for support. "Actually, Helblindi seemed shaken up when he found out who Loki… used to be."

George sighed. "It's been kind of a day for everyone, I think."

"Yeah," Mitchell agreed. "I don't suppose there's a pub on Asgard, is there? Because I think we could all use a drink."

Loki suddenly found laughter trembling in his chest, along with something else that made his eyes water. "Yes," he agreed. "I believe a drink is an excellent idea."


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the movie, Asgardians sound way more British than Norse. This has implications for their pubs.

Thor was, at heart, a fond and dutiful son. In spite of this, he had to confess to a very slightly malicious interest in exactly how his father intended to carry off the meeting with Byleistr and Helblindi.

Byleistr certainly did not waste any time in coming to the point: ushered into the Allfather's presence, the Jotun king immediately greeted him with:

"I must express my gratitude, Allfather, for the hospitality shown me by your sons. Of course, I should not be surprised by this, since one of them is my kinsman. Still, he has shown little enough of family affection up until now."

Thor was surprised , when he thought about it later, that the face he glanced at first was that of Helblindi. The older Jotun's mouth compressed momentarily, and then he was once more impassive, waiting with Thor for Odin's response.

Thor found himself a great deal less surprised when his father calmly refused to be wrong-footed. The Allfather, who stood in the centre of the throne room, on the same footing as the Jotun, merely nodded.

"He told you of his origins?"

"Yes," Byleistr replied. "I confess I am surprised, that you did not think to speak of it before now."

Odin inclined his head. "What difference would it have made, to what he did to your realm? I have made a great many mistakes as his father, and I wished to avoid making the same one twice. His ancestry is his own, to speak of as he will. It is no longer my place to make those decisions for him."

"You did not think the fact he was Jotun gave us the right to dispose of a traitor?" Byleistr's voice remained perfectly level, as though the matter was of little importance to him. Helblindi, behind him, winced. Odin clearly saw the expression but did not remark upon it. He also did not change his own perfectly even tone as he replied,

"The Jotun 'disposed' of him when he was an infant. His fate has been solely the concern of Asgard for all the years since. I see no reason for this to change now. My original conditions stand." Odin's posture said clearly the matter was closed. Looking at Byleistr, Thor realized the Jotun ruler had expected nothing else. It occurred to Thor that Byleistr was making an issue of this now, in order to leverage some concession at another time. He suspected his father knew that perfectly well. He also suspected that when the later concession was asked for, Odin might well agree to it.

Thor glanced at Helblindi again as Odin finished speaking, and saw the faintest ghost of relief flicker in his eyes. Odin now turned his attention, briefly, to Thor.

"We may need an escort, when we travel to Jotunheim. You will gather your best warriors and await us at the Bifrost. Your brother need not accompany us."

"My king," Thor replied respectfully, aware this statement actually meant "do not tell your brother where we are going." Apparently, old habits died hard, or else Odin did not count this as making decisions on Loki's behalf. Considering Loki had already been warned off, Thor decided no harm was being done. He bowed to Odin, and slightly less deeply to Byleistr, then sketched a respectful nod to old Helblindi, and withdrew.

Leaving the throne room, Thor made his way to the sparring grounds to look for his friends.

~oOo~

Loki and his housemates sat on the steps that led into the envoys' hall, out of earshot of the guards who had drawn off to a tactful distance. Loki, with contributions from Annie, had related the story of his confrontation with the two Jotun.

"Old Helblindi knew your mother?" Mitchell said. "Your birth mother, I mean." Loki nodded. "How do you feel about that?"

Loki wriggled his shoulders more than he shrugged. "I... I do not know. She feels more real to me now than she did previously."

"Understandable," George said kindly. "She certainly sounds like a remarkable person."

"I know," Loki agreed. "I cannot say whether I am more sorry I will never know her, or grateful she will never know what I turned into."

Mitchell reached out to brush his fingers against the back of Loki's head. "Taken all around, not so bad, really. Now, are we going to have that drink? This is more or less a garrison town, there's got to be a pub."

"Should we not stay here and... and look after the released prisoners?" Loki asked, trying to be conscientious.

Mitchell shrugged. "I dunno what we can do for them right now. We can't plan anything until Thor and your dad get back, most of them need to rest and recover more than anything, and to be completely honest, I really don't want to face Nick Fury without more backup."

The four friends contemplated the probable mental state of ex-Director Fury (or was he actually still Director Fury, since he might have been replaced by a disguised Dire Wraith instead of the genuine Maria Hill?) Regardless, they all reached the same conclusion.

"Now that you mention it, I too would feel safer if Thor, and possibly his friends, were present at such an interview. A drink it is. The tavern is in the town itself, outside the palace walls," Loki explained, and his friends' faces fell.

"So, under the terms of your banishment, you can't go there," George said.

Loki shrugged. "I should not anyway," he admitted. "It is where the common soldiers and the palace staff take their relaxation. The custom has always been that the court, and the officers, do their drinking elsewhere."

"Well, that's polite," Mitchell remarked. There was a pause, and Loki's friends traded a three-way glance before Annie smiled and asked,

"So how often did you used to go there?"

Loki smiled back. "Fairly frequently, but never as myself. I was generally the stranger sitting alone in the corner."

"That's not very sociable of you," Annie rebuked teasingly, squeezing his arm.

"I was not very sociable in those days," Loki agreed.

"So, what? You used to go there disguised as someone else and get drunk all by yourself?" Mitchell asked.

"Oh, no," Loki replied. "I am not the getting-drunk sort, especially not by myself." Of course not: getting drunk implied a loss of control, and as far as Loki was concerned, chaos was far more amusing when it happened to other people.

"So what would you do? People-watch?" George asked, perhaps a touch sarcastically.

"Yes," Loki replied immediately. There was another pause, which permitted the others a moment to give Loki a stern look for lying to them, and then Loki admitted sheepishly, "And sometimes I would get into fights."

"Oh, Loki," Annie said reproachfully.

"What? One needs to practice one's hand-to-hand combat," Loki argued.

"Don't give us that 'one' crap," Mitchell ordered. "What about 'you'?"

Loki shrugged and, as though continuing the same sentence, said, "And also I was often very angry. No real harm was done," he added hastily. "It is not as though I used to take knives with me."

"Well, that's something," George sighed, removing his spectacles and polishing them on the tail of his shirt. "Did you usually win?"

"George!" Annie hissed, and George took a quick step backward, out of her reach.

"What? It's a natural question," George protested.

"It is not whether you win or lose," Loki replied piously.

"It's whether you really need to punch someone," Mitchell completed the thought. Then he looked hard at Loki and did not offer the obvious corollary, about sometimes feeling the need to be punched.

"Indeed," Loki mumbled, then added, "I promise not to fight with anyone tonight."

"Kind of a moot point, since you're not allowed to go into the town," Annie commented, in the tone of one who did not even believe herself.

"Yes, because I have such a spotless history of doing as I am told," Loki mused. He rubbed his nose. "Actually, the real problem is that I do not believe any of us has any Asgardian money. Although..."

"Oh, no," George said.

"What?" Loki demanded.

"I don't know, you just sound like I should be saying 'oh no,'" George said.

"George," Annie protested again.

Loki smiled. "I do not contemplate armed robbery. I merely think it time I paid a visit to my old chambers."

~oOo~

George and Annie, at least, worried about the logistics of all four of them sneaking into Loki's old chambers, but as Loki pointed out, he had been sneaking around the palace for nine hundred years and had no plans to get caught now. At the moment, even on Asgard, his powers were nothing like as strong as they should be, but he was perfectly capable of casting a "these are not the droids you are looking for" glamour on any guards they encountered. Mitchell, at least, found it highly entertaining.

The door to his chambers was locked, but it was not bespelled against him-- which of course made sense, given the enchantment had probably been cast when Loki was supposed to be dead. The latch yielded to his hand, and he and his friends stepped inside. Loki gestured, the lamps lit, and they all looked around.

The outer chamber was starkly clean and tidy, meticulously dusted, every surface shining, entirely impersonal. Loki had to suppress a shudder at the feeling that nothing had changed, that the room, pristine and unwelcoming, was exactly as it had been when he occupied it. The impression was certainly the result of a faulty memory, but he found himself unable to dispel it.

He tried not to look at the desk, where a shining horned helmet sat like a monument-- or a warning. Thor had told him their mother had ordered it placed in his rooms after his fall from the first Bifrost, during the time he had been presumed dead. The sentiment was touching, but Loki thought perhaps the helmet held a rather different significance for his mother than it did for him. The curved horns were intended to look menacing, but he was not amused by the irony that they now seemed primarily a threat to himself.

Annie, George, and Mitchell were looking around in open, friendly, curiosity. Their expressions were widely at variance with the atmosphere of the chamber, a bright spot of warmth.

"So this was your room," Annie stated the obvious. Loki nodded. She cast a sidelong glance at him and remarked neutrally, "Not exactly cozy, is it?"

Loki laughed briefly. "No. Asgard is many things, but 'cozy' is not one of them." The laugh held no amusement. He was also not amused by the irony that, as he stood looking around the chamber, the secret Frost Giant primarily remembered feeling cold-- although, in fairness, the temperature of the room was perfectly comfortable.

He felt a little better when Annie took his hand. On Asgard, she felt much warmer than she did back at home, but that was not the only reason he suddenly felt less chilled. He and his friends looked around the room as though it was some sort of interactive museum exhibit, and Loki found himself unable to summon any feeling of ever having really lived here. Perhaps he just did not want to do so.

Then his eyes fell on the book cases that took up one wall of the room, and a thought occurred to him.

"There are books here that might be of assistance to us at home," he said as he approached the shelves. "After all, since magical adventures insist upon finding us, we might as well be prepared." Annie let go of his hand, and Loki began tracing his fingers over the spines of the well-handled books. The feel of the leather bindings was the first friendly contact the room had made with him.

There were several general reference works he had rather badly missed. They were his, he told himself, they belonged to him, he had every right to take them. Loki pulled them off the shelves and before he could think twice tucked them into… well, it amounted to an interdimensional hiding place, which he hoped would allow him to retrieve the books upon their return to Bristol.

Resolutely, Loki refused to allow himself to consider the possibility of being unable to return to Bristol, to the shabby little house on the terrace, and the tiny cozy box room in which he could only stand upright by the wall nearest the door. The room was so small that Loki had to store most of his belongings in containers beneath the short, narrow bed, and of course it had no cupboard or closet. There was not one inch of space in which a monster might hide.

Not, of course, that Loki feared such things anymore: it had been centuries since that particular terror had evaporated. Nor did he wake up cold and frightened, which was the original issue that had caused poor frustrated Hildr to try to scare him into staying in bed in the first place. Still, it was almost amusing that, as an adult, he found himself occupying exactly the sort of space he would probably have found comforting as a child. Truly, Loki was unable to ever do anything at the right time.

Even he found the box room too small to spend much waking time in, but of course he had the freedom of the common spaces, the kitchen and front room, where he did not have the paradoxical feeling of being under constant hostile scrutiny while simultaneously being utterly ignored. Loki was able to understand that these impressions were mutually exclusive, and probably existed only within his own head-- or at any rate partly in his head-- but he was as yet unable to shake them off when he remembered living in the palace.

Loki firmly returned his mind to the task at hand, and scanned the titles before him. After a moment he made a sound of annoyance, realizing that quite a number of them actually belonged to the library. Loki had always made rather less effort to irritate the librarian than he did most other people in Asgard, because he had always felt rather more welcome in the library than elsewhere. He often returned materials late, but had always made a point of doing so eventually. Apparently, whoever had been maintaining his chambers in their state of cleanliness had not been inclined to pay much attention to their contents. Or, perhaps, had simply not been disposed to molest them.

Recalling to his original purpose in visiting the room, Loki temporarily abandoned the books and entered the bedchamber, where he crossed to the wardrobe and pulled open the door. His abandoned clothing was neatly arrayed and free of dust. Loki let his fingers trail down a now-unfamiliar sleeve, then looked up. Above the hanging compartment was a shelf, upon which rested a carved wooden box, clearly visible to any who opened the door. Loki lifted it down, telling himself it would not matter if someone had--

Someone had not. When he opened the lid, he found a small tangle of useless items-- feathers, a shiny stone, a couple of dried leaves and a tiny carved figure he remembered clumsily, painstakingly shaping one hot afternoon after he had received his first real knife. These were the sort of childish treasures that are put away and forgotten, and probably never missed if accidentally thrown away. Loki, of course, clung to everything, even when he pretended not to, and so he had always known exactly where these things were, had kept them under his eye. Besides, the box was not merely a tomb for his memories. He had continued to have active use of it.

And behold: underneath the feathers and leaves and meaningless treasures was the small pile of Asgardian currency he had always kept on hand. Loki had an excellent eye for detail as well as a retentive memory, and he could tell at once the money was exactly as he had left it, had been untouched with the other contents, even though the box itself had clearly been regularly dusted.

It was not that it would have mattered if someone, perhaps the servant assigned to these rooms-- it used to be Siggunr, he had no idea who cleaned them now-- had pilfered it. It was not as though Loki had been in need of it, where he had gone. But, still, it was somehow strangely comforting, to feel that care was being taken of his belongings, as though someone hoped he might return someday and have use of them. Loki had as little wish to remain in Asgard as he did to die on Jotunheim, but he allowed himself briefly to hug to himself this evidence that he might really be missed.

He looked at the box for a moment, briefly considered adding it to the books in his magical hiding place, then rejected the idea. He did not need it, and it occurred to him there was a small possibility his mother did. He removed the currency, replaced the box on the shelf, then went back to the outer chamber, where he conscientiously sought out every library book he could find.

Pushing the helmet out of the way, Loki stacked the books in the middle of the desk surface, then opened a drawer to find his writing materials exactly as he had left them. Taking a sheet of paper and a pen, he composed a brief note thanking whoever had been maintaining his old rooms in such a state of tidiness, requested this person please see the books were returned to the library, and asked that his small token of thanks be accepted. He signed the note, folded it around half the currency-- with the writing on the outside to avoid misunderstanding-- and left it on top of the stack of books.

Then he shoved the remainder of the money into a pocket and smiled at Annie and the boys.

"Let us see whether the tavern is still as I remember it."

~oOo~

The tavern had not changed an iota from his memory: it was still dimly lit, snug, with the trace of woodsmoke underlying those of ale, mead, and bodies of varying states of hygiene. Whoever cleaned Loki's chambers had demonstrably not plied her talents in this place. As Asgard went, this was probably as "cozy" as Loki had ever experienced, and he hoped Annie was enjoying it.

There was an understandable ripple of interest when Loki and his friends walked in: their clothing alone set them apart, marked them as foreign. And presumably by now, everyone knew the banished prince had taken refuge on Midgard, and therefore guessed who one of the newcomers must be. Garb aside, Loki was not inconspicuous anyway: he was tall even by the standards of Asgard (though well within the norms, certainly not a _giant._ ) Most of the patrons of the tavern must have either recognized him, or deduced who he was. Fortunately, it was still early: the place was only half-full, and nobody was yet drunk enough or aggressive enough to confront him.

Loki's friends stayed close anyway, as he approached the bar with the intent of brazening it out. He requested four tankards of ale-- Annie would not drink hers, but she would look less conspicuous if she had one before her, and surely one of her friends would be kind enough to imbibe it for her-- and was in the process of paying for them when a voice spoke from his left:

"I wasn't expecting to see you back in Asgard."

Loki turned, maintaining a casual demeanour but alert to defend himself and his friends. Beyond Mitchell, who had likewise come to attention, was a blocky man with a weathered face. He wore everyday military dress, and was considerably older than Loki.

It took him a moment, but Loki had an excellent memory for names and faces, even when they had not been seen for quite some time. It had seemed a necessary skill for life in a hostile environment, when swift recognition of an enemy might be the difference between being on the giving or receiving end of a serious injury.

And yes, perhaps it was time for Loki to re-examine some of the assumptions that had ruled his life in Asgard. They had probably never been as necessary as they seemed. This did not seem to be the moment to do so, and so he remained vigilant even as he let a smile of genuine pleasure break across his face.

"Balder," he said warmly, leaning past Mitchell to extend a hand in greeting. Partly the gesture was calculated to be disarming, since he truly had no desire for trouble. But he was indeed surprisingly happy to see the man, who was one of the soldiers the younger Loki had inveigled into assisting him with his combat training.

Balder, whose nickname was not "the Bright" and against whom Loki had never plotted, either with mistletoe or conventional weapons, clasped Loki's hand and was introduced to the housemates.

"Balder's rank would be the equivalent of a British sergeant," Loki explained, after a glance at the man's current insignia. "Years ago, when I was a boy, he was one of a number of soldiers who very kindly allowed me to practice my training with them." There was probably no need to explain why he had gone to strangers to be knocked about, rather than permitting his brother and his brother's friends to do so. If there was, the housemates were tactful enough to let explanations wait until they were alone.

"Glad to do it," the older man replied, with what even to Loki's sensitive antennae seemed to be authentic friendliness. To Annie and the others, he explained, with slightly beery good nature, "He wasn't very big in those days, nothing like as tall as he is now, but game? My word." To Loki again, he announced, "The lads and I, we were all sorry when you went bad. Not surprised, really, but sorry."

"Thank you?" was all Loki could manage in reply. Apparently Balder was drunker than Loki had thought, to speak so plainly. And yet there seemed absolutely no malice in his words.

"We all used to say, 'if someone doesn't start paying more attention to that boy, they're going to be sorry one day.' All of us," Balder asserted. Addressing Annie directly, he explained, "He was a scamp in those days, no real harm in him-- " It occurred to Loki that Balder and his men's opinion might have been different, had they been part of the court and a target of the "scamp" and his pranks-- "but he was too bright and too angry to be left alone so much. Not good for you. Glad to see you back, sir," he added, clapping Loki on the shoulder. "Sir" sounded very strange, both in light of his disgrace and because it was coming from someone Loki remembered mostly calling him "youngster." Even as easily offended as Loki had been in those days-- not that he was currently a model of tolerance-- he had always rather liked it, and the offhand acceptance it seemed to imply.

"It is good to be back," Loki replied, with partial truth and without expanding on the legality of his presence here. Far more honestly, he added, "And it is good to see you, Balder. I was always grateful for your help, although I doubt I ever said so. Can I buy you a drink?"

"I wouldn't say no, ta very much," the soldier replied. Loki smiled again and ordered another tankard.

~oOo~

Thor waited outside Heimdall's observatory, with Sif and the Warriors Three. He had explained the Allfather's request, that they might be needed as an escort to return Byleistr and Helblindi back to Jotunheim. All four had been frankly dubious, with Sif voicing the obvious question:

"Won't we be a provocation? Five Asgardian warriors and the Allfather?"

"Possibly. On the other hand, we may be needed to ensure fair play: the false king will not meekly permit the true Byleistr and Helblindi to return," Thor explained.

"Can we not take Loki with us?" Fandral requested.

"I never thought I would live long enough to hear _you_ ask--" Volstagg muttered.

"Nor did I," Fandral agreed. "But he could place one of his spells upon us, so we all looked Jotun. That way, we could slip into the palace without attracting any notice, until we reached the throne room where the true king could reveal himself."

"Very dramatic," Sif said dryly.

"And a good idea," Thor admitted. "Except that Loki, if his identity was found out, really _would_ be a provocation, to say nothing of how it would prejudice onlookers against any group that included him."

"Hmm. True," Fandral agreed reluctantly.

"Has he spoken to them?" Volstagg asked, rather diffidently. "To Byleistr and Helblindi, I mean."

"He has," Thor replied. "It… could have gone worse. And I would really rather not speak further of this in his absence. I mean no offense, and I know the question was kindly motivated, but I think it would be best if we could all speak openly of this, with Loki, at some point in the future."

"Of course," Volstagg murmured, abashed. Thor reached out and patted his arm.

"I hope you already know this, my friends, but it should probably be said-- many years ago, I believed a choice had to be made, between you or him. I was wrong, and I would not do it again, and I am not now going to make the same mistake in the other direction. I hope you all know that, whatever happens between my brother and myself, my love for you is undiminished."

"We know," Hogun said gruffly. "It is not like a flask of water, that runs out if you share it."

"And besides," Fandral shrugged, "he is your brother. Your friends need not love him, but is only right that you do. Were I to become jealous, it would be of these Avengers I hear so much about. Really, who is this Iron Man?"

"And Captain America?" Sif added, glancing gratefully at Fandral as the mood lightened.

Thor laughed. "You may find yourself in a position to meet them, sooner than you expect. At all depends on whether the Allfather chooses to send aid to Midgard."

They were still digesting this idea when a group of guards came marching into view, escorting a figure who towered above them all.

"Which one is that?" Sif asked under her breath, as they all came respectfully to attention to greet their guest.

"Helblindi," Volstagg replied, his tone definite. Helblindi would have been Thor's own guess, based entirely on the fact he was alone and there was no sign of the Allfather, but a guess it would have been. Volstagg, however, clearly recognized the Jotun as an individual. Thor rebuked himself for his own failure, tried to memorize the specifics Helblindi's features.

"Volstagg, will you join me?" Thor asked in an undertone, as he stepped forward to greet the old councilor. Helblindi looked startled, to be greeted with warm friendliness by the hulking warrior-- not so hulking next to him, of course-- and it occurred to Thor to wonder whether, to a Jotun, one Aesir looked more or less like another.

Volstagg, with commendable humility, introduced himself to Helblindi and reminded him of the occasion they had sat together at dinner, when the Jotun delegation had come to Asgard. Helblindi's manners were the equal of Volstagg's, and he made pleasant small talk for a few moments as if there was nothing bizarre about the situation. Thor could not be sure, but he thought the old Jotun was amused by the whole thing.

Amusement was not the first reaction Thor would have expected, and this might have been the reason he quietly asked to speak to Helblindi privately. The escort had already started the march back to the palace. Sif and the Warriors tactfully withdrew into the observatory, leaving Thor and Helblindi alone.

"Of what did you wish to speak?" Helblindi asked, his guttural voice surprisingly mild.

Thor swallowed, suddenly feeling callow and very stupid, unable to ask the question that had suddenly occurred to him. Instead, he heard himself launch into the _other_ matter that needed to be cleared up.

"I feel… I think Loki, when he spoke to you, left you with the impression his madness was entirely the result of his discovery that he is Jotun."

Helblindi inclined his head. "Was it not?"

"No. Not entirely. Not… not primarily, perhaps. Loki has been troubled for a very long time. For as long as he has been part of our family. I did not know of his origins, of Father finding him alone in the snow, but… I think now we should have done more, to ensure he knew we really love him. Learning he was Jotun was a crisis because it seemed to him to explain why we did not. But it came upon the heels of, and was followed closely by, other crises, other betrayals. He was unable to cope with all of them, and that is when his mind gave way.

"What he did to your people was unforgivable, and he has not forgiven himself. But he will also not excuse himself, or try to explain, and so I thought… I thought I would try. Because, as terrible as his action was, I do not believe he really knew what he was doing, or that he truly planned it. I believe it was an impulsive act, not purposeful or cold-blooded. There is more to my brother than the... viciousness he displayed toward you."

Helblindi looked thoughtful. "He is indeed fortunate, to have a brother such as you."

Thor felt his face blaze. "Do not say that. Believe me, if you knew what I had contributed to his state of desperation, you would not suggest such a thing. I have not been anything like as good a brother to him as I should have been."

"On the other hand," Helblindi remarked, "it argues considerable love on your part, to display such... tenderness... toward him in his Jotun form. You seem less troubled by it than he is."

Thor squared his shoulders. "As I once told my brother, I love him, and he does not. Nor was I taken by surprise as he was." It was on the tip of his tongue to argue that, had he been surprised by the revelation, he might himself have done something desperate and terrible to his brother. He could not say it. As much anger as he and Loki had felt toward each other in the past, Thor was unable to contemplate the idea of deliberately harming him in that way. In an explosion of temper, certainly. But not over something like that, not when Loki was already feeling such shock and betrayal. Surely he would always have taken Loki's part in a situation like that.

He wanted to believe it, but there was of course no way to put it to the test.

Thor tried again.

"I have also wronged your people, grievously, and was forced to learn painful lessons about myself. I believe myself to be a better man than I was when all this began, but do not give me credit for always having been so."

Helblindi smiled slightly and sketched a slight bow toward Thor. "That is well said, my prince."

Thor had the frustrating thought that his protests were making no more impression upon Helblindi than the earnest utterances of a child. On the other hand, he was himself feeling much more at ease talking to the Jotun, and since there was little time left, he gathered his courage to ask the real question.

"You spoke of the Jotun queen. Loki's... mother."

Helblindi's face became grave. "I did."

Blushing furiously, Thor blundered on, "You were... very fond of her."

"This surprises you?" Helblindi asked, his tone dangerously mild. "That monsters feel affection?"

"No, no," Thor said hastily. "I... I wondered... "

Helblindi's eyes narrowed, and then he saw what Thor was trying to say. "Ah. No, my prince. My love for his mother was entirely... chaste. And was of no benefit to her whatsoever, as I explained to you earlier." Thor was already improving in his ability to read Jotun expressions, but the look of self-loathing would have been obvious to anyone. "And I may indeed be a coward, but I am not quite so craven as to allow the murder of my own child and his mother."

"Of course," Thor muttered shamefacedly. Then he gathered his courage. "But you seemed... I thought you might, perhaps, feel something toward my brother. For his mother's sake."

"Indeed? It seems I am in need of schooling my expression, if my thoughts are so apparent even to an Aesir youth." Thor did not argue this designation-- for all he knew, Helblindi was old enough to consider Odin a stripling. After a moment, Helblindi went on, "You are correct, although you should not over-estimate my sentiments. Also, madness is not unknown on Jotunheim, so it is possible to feel a certain amount of pity for his state of mind. None of this changes what he did, or our desire to see him properly punished," the old Jotun added sternly. "But we have learned over these many years not to wish too hard for what cannot be.

"I will admit, though, I am not entirely sorry to know he has defenders. It would have been preferable if he had been defended when he was an innocent babe, rather than after he had grown to commit such crimes, but that is my fault and not yours. Perhaps good may yet come of it. And it is some comfort to know he at least understands the seriousness of what he did. Your desire to set things right for your... brother... is commendable, young prince, but do not wish for too much. It will only lead to disappointment." Helblindi cast a stern but kindly look at Thor, and then turned his gaze to the road that led to the palace. There were figures coming into view. "And now, unless I am mistaken, come your king and mine, and this conversation is at an end."

~oOo~

Within the hour, the tavern no longer resembled any of Loki's recollections. Admittedly, it was still crowded, noisy, and rather smelly. Loki was, once again, seated at a table in the corner. But this time, the table was a large one, and the corner was the one near where the musicians had set up. ("Is that a fiddle?" George had demanded, squinting at one of the instruments. "It is, isn't it? Why is there _always_ a fiddle?") Far from being alone, Loki was not only crowded between George on one side and Annie on the other-- Mitchell having fallen into conversation with the musicians, discovered one of their instruments was enough like his guitar for him to make do on it, and been invited to sit in-- but Balder and a number of his companions had joined them when their numbers swelled to the point a smaller table could not accommodate them.

There was one brief incident, early enough that everyone was still mostly sober, that could easily have become ugly: one of the younger soldiers, a man unknown to Loki, had begun to pester Annie. It might have begun in good nature, but she did not like it. Loki was not the sort who immediately intervened on behalf of a female companion-- mostly because, for much of his life, the only female he could class in any way as a companion was Sif, and one spoke for her when one was tired of life. Annie, however, was a different matter, too polite and self-effacing to stand up for herself, and made very uncomfortable by unwanted attention. Loki had first traded chairs with her, and when the soldier had persisted, attempting to lean over Loki to continue to press his attentions to "my new sweetheart," Loki had, as calmly as he could, suggested he stop.

Well, perhaps not quite as calmly as all that. Indeed, he might have sounded a little threatening. Perhaps more than a little.

At which the soldier turned on him with a sneer.

"And what does the banished prince of Asgard intend to do about it?"

Loki suddenly realized, from the other man's overconfident bearing, that he was making a crucial mistake concerning Loki's magical status: he clearly believed the "banished prince" had been stripped of his powers in addition to his citizenship.

There was no reason to suspect the soldier of wishing a gory and painful fate on Loki: it was far more likely he, like most people in Asgard, did not know what was involved in such a punishment. As a being without magic, perhaps he thought its removal was the equivalent of having one's head shaved, as opposed to both arms amputated, and assumed it could be carried out quietly and privately with no visible or lasting ill-effects.

This assumption naturally gave Loki a considerable advantage if it came to a duel. Loki started to his feet, reminding himself not to do anything too permanent or involving, say, balls of fire, as he had no real desire to either kill the idiot or burn the place down around them.

Before he could act, Loki became aware of jostling at the far end of the table, and then of something passed hand to hand, from either Balder or the man sitting next to him, down the company. It reached George, who, on a vigorous signal from Balder, reached past Annie to lay in front of Loki a weapon in a scabbard-- Loki was of two minds whether it was a short sword or a very large knife. Its owner, the man beside Balder, called down the table,

"If you would kindly just wipe the blade when you're finished with it, sir."

"Thank you, I will," Loki called back, with a smile that made the young soldier look suddenly very nervous: Loki's reputation as a treacherous, sorcerous sneak was really only matched by his reputation as one whose skill with a sharp edge was not to be trifled with. Balder and most of his friends were looking on with suppressed glee: apparently all of the company believed Loki to be without his magic, but not all of them enjoyed the idea of seeing him suffer for it.

By the time Loki had unsheathed the sword-- he had decided it was a sword-- the other man had apologized to Annie, and also discovered sitting at another table a group of friends he very much wished to join.

Loki did not join in the roar of laughter that followed the young man's retreat, being rather too familiar with the feeling of being on the receiving end of mockery. But he handed back the weapon with thanks that was received with the same offhand good nature that had marked Balder's initial approach. In recompense, since he did not see how he could possibly have any future need for Asgardian money, Loki then bought a round for the table.

In his prior visits to this establishment, Loki had privately nursed considerable scorn for the patrons and their pastimes, the drinking and singing and dancing. There was a Midgardian expression regarding sour grapes that he now realized was applicable: when one was actually part of a group engaged in such activities, rather than a lone and lonely observer, the scorned pastimes were considerably more enjoyable.

He did not even mind the music. Indeed, it struck him as amusing, to discover how similar the songs of Mitchell's youth were to those of Asgard. They all appeared to be about drinking, or fighting, or drinking and fighting, or young women (the context of the songs tended to argue against referring to them as "maidens") named either Molly or Sigrid. Aside from the names of the women, the only way Loki could identify the origin of the song was by noticing whether Mitchell or an Asgardian sang the words. The tunes were not interchangeable, but they clearly came from a common origin, so the Asgardian musicians and Mitchell seemed to be able to follow each other without difficulty. Loki, who had no particular interest in music, found himself struck by both the skill and the enjoyment displayed by the players.

The songs all tended to have elements that were easy for listeners to learn. Sitting off in isolation in a dark corner of the tavern-- or indeed feeling uncomfortably as though he had sidled into a group that did not want him at a palace revel-- Loki had never understood the attraction of loud and often tuneless singing in groups. It was therefore surprising when he found himself, with the other occupants of his table, and as far as he could tell the entire tavern, joining Mitchell in his song about a woman whose hair was flung over her shoulders, tied up with a black velvet band. Even George, who initially rolled his eyes as Loki used to do, added his voice to the cacophony.

And then Annie, who as a ghost could not consume alcohol and was rapidly becoming the only sober person within view, decided she had sat at the crowded table for long enough.

"Come on," she shouted into Loki's ear, tugging at his arm. "We're going to dance."

"No, I could not possibly... I do not know how to dance," Loki protested, then confessed, "and I am far too drunk to learn."

"No, sweetie, you're just drunk enough," Annie retorted, and dragged him off to join the couples already occupying the open floor.

Unlike the carefully patterned dances of the palace, in which forgetting a step led to confusion and embarrassment, Loki quickly realized the only requirements in the tavern were to keep in time to the music, retain one's grip on one's partner, and try not to knock anyone else over.

He also quickly realized the friendly chaos was a great deal of fun. It continued to be so even when Annie decided George must also dance and handed Loki over to an older woman he recognized as Siggunr, from the palace staff, who was out with her husband and two strapping sons. Loki found himself succumbing to giggles at the mental picture of his own mother, of Frigga, out at the tavern with her family. Then, despite the noise around them, he found himself engaged with Siggunr in earnest conversation about those marble floors in the palace, and the means of causing them to shine. If he remembered any of the conversation later, he would have valuable intelligence to impart to Carol upon his return to work-- he would not consider the idea he might be unable to return to the school-- in the event anything happened to the polishing machine.

And then, for some reason, he was dancing with George, which seemed a perfectly natural thing to do. Only slightly less natural was having Balder for a partner still later in the night, the old soldier's face red but his feet still remarkably dexterous.

Balder shouted something, and Loki had to bend down to hear him.

"Is it true you're really one of them Jotun?" the sergeant bawled. That had not been a secret since Loki's first return to Asgard, and there was no threat in Balder's manner, so Loki nodded. "Good soldiers," Balder announced. "Lot of nonsense talked by civilians, about monsters and such, but they don't know anything. Good soldiers," he repeated, nodding with intoxicated solemnity and patting Loki clumsily on the shoulder. Loki nodded earnestly back.

By the end of the night the band was repeating songs, about the rocky road to Dublin, and the halls of Valhalla, and the riotous wake of a man named Tim Finnegan. And then the barman was ushering them out into the night, still crowded together with Balder and his cronies, and once again all singing the song about the black velvet band.

It was just as well their number included a large number of palace guards, because otherwise the palace guards might have come to have a word with them about the amount of noise they were making. Considerably less after they left most of their number at the garrison and continued on toward the envoys' hall. Annie belatedly noticed a chill in the air, so Loki gave her his hooded sweatshirt, upon which _he_ promptly became chilled.

"I really am the worst Frost Giant imaginable," he giggled, and then paused to consider. "I think I am also rather intoxicated."

"So am I," Mitchell agreed, from the other side of George, who was being held up between them and was too far gone to join in the conversation. "I don't think I've been this drunk since 1915."

"I have never been this drunk in my _life!_ " Loki announced happily.

"Take a word of advice-- drink as much water as you can before you go to bed," Mitchell advised earnestly. And then George, who could not talk but mysteriously retained the ability to sing, began with the black velvet band again and Loki forgot to ask why.

"Loki?" a disbelieving voice interrupted their song.

"Brother!" Loki exclaimed happily, let go of George, who lurched into Mitchell and nearly knocked them both over, and embraced Thor. Sif and Fandral were with them, so Loki embraced them as well for good measure. "How good to see you!"

"Are you drunk?" Sif asked, in obvious disbelief.

"No!" Loki replied, instinctively.

"Yes," Annie corrected.

"Yes," Loki admitted.

"We have had a drop o' the craithur," Mitchell lilted, using the words of the song about the wake, which seemed extremely funny to both himself and Loki. Less so, perhaps, to Thor and his friends.

"What are you doing here in the town?" Thor demanded. "I am quite sure you were supposed to remain in the envoys' hall."

"We were. We did," Loki assured him. "But then we became rather bored, and very thirsty, and so we went looking for a drink."

"And found it, by the look of you," Fandral remarked.

"Yes. Several," Loki agreed. "And how are you? Was your sojourn successful? Is Jotunheim lovely at this time of year?" It crossed Loki's mind that he should probably be taking this matter more seriously, and he made a great effort to look solemn.

Which only made Mitchell giggle.

"We needed... a little bit of a break," Annie explained to Thor, looking anxiously from him to his friends. "All of us. We didn't mean any disrespect."

"No," Thor said gently. "Of course not. You should all go to bed now. I will come find you in the morning. Later in the morning." He smiled at Annie, then glanced at his brother, and the smile broadened. "I will be most interested to see how you are in a few hours."

As he walked away, Loki turned to Annie in puzzlement.

"What do you suppose he meant by that?"

Annie smiled kindly. "I suppose you'll just have to find out."


	23. Chapter 23

As Loki struggled into consciousness, he was aware of two impressions: first, that some strange and furry creature had crawled into his mouth and died there. And second, that Thor had somehow made his way inside Loki's head, and was trying to hammer his way out.

Loki opened his eyes to discover darkness before them. It took him a moment to recognize the darkness as the back of Mitchell's head: his nose was pressed into the base of Mitchell's skull, and the sensation of something furry inside his mouth was the result of having a mouthful of Mitchell's hair. Loki spat out the hair as gently as he could, both out of respect for his friend and also to avoid jostling his own pounding head. Now his mouth tasted like something considerably less furry had chosen it as a tomb. Loki was unable for the moment to decide how much of an improvement that was to his situation.

The back of his t-shirt felt damp between the shoulderblades. This was puzzling. Loki really did not feel equipped to deal with such a mystery at the moment. In addition to the thunder within his head, he was feeling quite ill. His recent sense of improved wellbeing-- that is, the sense of having been run over by a Fiat instead of a train-- had been downgraded at least to a lorry. Or possibly a rather large herd of rhinoceroses. No, surely rhinoceroses would not wish for him to suffer so.

On the positive side, however, he was much warmer than he had been the night before. He distinctly remembered shivering violently by the time they had gotten into the envoys' hall, and refusing to take his sweatshirt back from Annie on the grounds if one of them was going to freeze, it might as well be him. It had been nearly as bad as the dreams of freezing he had as a child, although in this case his sleep had not been affected.

Loki steeled himself and tried to raise his head. This turned out to be an exceedingly bad idea. It also led to a protesting little whimper from behind him. An arm tightened around him, and Loki realized the reason he was so nicely cozy was because George was snuggled up to him just as closely as he was himself to Mitchell. What a good friend George was. (It would be several more minutes before he figured out the reason his t-shirt felt damp was because George had been drooling on him.)

As his reason returned, Loki remembered Thor's cryptic remark of the night before, about seeing how he was in the morning. Ah. Now it was clear. Thor, who was not hammering inside his head after all, intended to come and gloat over Loki's pitiful state. And probably shout cheerfully at him. No, assuredly he would shout. If the situations were reversed, that was certainly what Loki would do.

Preservation of his own life, to say nothing of his relationship with his brother, demanded that Loki find a cure for his illness, and quickly. The healing spell to which he had resorted before now would probably work on this condition, except that the physical damage was not quite as easily identified as vampire fangs to the throat or a sword-thrust to the chest. Obviously, this condition was less serious than either of those, certainly he could tell by now that he was not going to die, at least not immediately. He would not be so fortunate. However, what did not kill him could still make him miserable, particularly if Thor caught him like this.

Loki resorted to metaphor, imagining thousands of tiny, evil imps occupying his body-- particularly his head-- and then pictured them being driven away by righteously angry... ants. There was simply not room in there for his usual rhinoceroses. And besides, he did not think he could bear the stamping. The clashing of imaginary mandibles was bad enough.

Metaphor appeared to work: the sensation of nausea ebbed, along with the headache. Loki still felt tired, but no longer as though attempting to sit up would result in him falling off the edge of the world. Again.

The fact he was the only one awake, and was in the middle, became inconvenient. Loki gently detached George's clinging arm, then attempted to draw his own from under Mitchell.

"Good morning," Annie boomed from the doorway.

Well, it sounded like she was booming. Common sense suggested she was probably speaking normally and he heard it as booming. Loki sent another division of ants in for a mop-up action.

"Good morning, Annie," Loki managed, past his horribly dry mouth. "How are you today?"

"Better than you are, I wager," Annie replied cheerfully. "Also, wishing I had a camera and that Mitchell would show up in a picture. You three are adorable. Sorry-looking, but adorable."

"You mock my pain," Loki quoted Princess Buttercup. He was rather proud of himself for having the presence of mind to do so, considering he felt like he had already tumbled like Westley down a mountain.

"Not at all," Annie replied kindly. "I've got a pitcher of water here for you. Have some."

By the time Loki had sat up and gratefully consumed the water Annie offered, he felt almost... the Midgardian expression was "almost human." More appropriate for Loki would be "almost shapeshifted Aesir/Jotun hybrid," but that actually sounded like something that should probably feel terrible. "Almost human" it was, then.

Beside him, George groaned. "Why am I still alive?"

"Please, George, lower your voice," Mitchell pleaded, as he carefully sat up on the edge of the bed and also accepted a glass of water from Annie, who more and more was beginning to resemble an angel of mercy.

"Don't tell me you don't feel horrible," George grumbled.

"I do," Mitchell replied. "Awful. I'm sure I'd feel even worse if I didn't happen to already be dead."

"Oh God, you're lucky," George moaned. "I'd give anything to be dead right now. One of you, please kill me."

Loki, who had found it safest to lie down again, managed to roll over to face George. He took his friend's head in both of his hands. "Hush," he crooned, and with a concerted effort of magic managed to pull most of the illness out of George and into himself, where the ants did their best to get rid of it. The ants were having some trouble keeping up.

George blinked. "What did you just do?"

Loki winced and released him. "Demonstrated my sincere love for you. How are you feeling?"

"Better," George admitted cautiously, fumbling in his shirt pocket for his spectacles.

"Ready to eat something greasy for breakfast?" Mitchell asked.

"No," Loki replied, twisting around to stare at him in disbelief. "Are you mad?"

"No, really. It helps. Any chance of it?"

"This is Asgard," Loki replied, with asperity. "We would be in far more trouble if our recovery depended upon a breakfast that was nutritious and filled with vitamins and... and fibre." He rolled carefully over-- George groaned again, but it seemed reflex more than anything-- and followed Mitchell's example in standing. A moment later, George was also on his feet and drinking his own tumbler of water.

Loki pressed his fingers to his temples. Nothing exploded. "Well, that is hopeful. Although... I wonder if I can conjure toothbrushes here? That is almost the worst thing about this whole adventure: no sooner do we acquire a clean change of clothes and any implement of personal hygiene, than we have to flee from something and find ourselves once again with only what we stand up in."

A knock came upon the door. It was not anything like loud enough to be Thor, so Loki called-- _softly_ \-- for the person to enter.

The door opened and one of the chambermaids-- young, and new since Loki's time, he did not recognize her-- popped her head in.

"Beg pardon, sir," she addressed Loki nervously-- as was to be expected, there was no telling what sort of stories she had been told about the mad Frost Giant twice-traitor, and there was no doubt he looked rather wild at the moment-- "but is there anything you need?"

"I am told that what we require is something greasy for breakfast," Loki informed her. "Does that make any sense to you?"

The maid blinked, and then an understanding smile broke across her face. "Had a bit to drink last night, sir?" she asked, emboldened.

"Yes, except replace 'a bit' with 'more than any sane being should ever contemplate.' We are all lucky not to be blind and paralytic. Can you help us-- ?"

"Gunna," the girl supplied her name.

"-- Gunna?" Loki asked. She was looking at him very strangely, and Loki realized he was automatically smoothing out the coverlet they had slept upon. "I realize this is your job, Gunna, but I seem to recall there are no trade unions on Asgard, so no harm is being done. If you can direct us to breakfast, I promise you my eternal gratitude, although I do not think I can express it in any tangible way."

Gunna smiled again, having apparently decided his insanity manifested itself in harmless and amusing ways. "Not to worry, sir. I'll bring you something," she said kindly, and withdrew.

"I really will love you forever," Loki called after her. He glanced at his friends. "Wait-- on Midgard, they speak of sexual harassment. Did I just harass her?"

"I don't think so," Mitchell replied. "At least, she seemed to take it as a legitimate expression of desperation."

"Well, good. I'm sure she's a nice girl. It would be churlish of me to make her feel uncomfortable." Loki yawned. "If I think hard, I can probably remember where the bath is in this place. Since I do not think I can think hard right now, perhaps we should go exploring."

~oOo~

Half an hour later, the four housemates were back out on the steps, washed, clothes rendered habitable by magic, breakfast plates balanced on their laps. They were outdoors partly because they hoped the fresh air would complete their return to the land of the living-- for a variable value of "living," obviously-- and partly because they were still avoiding the ex-prisoners.

It was not that they feared Nick Fury, they told each other, merely that if he did as they expected and began shouting, there was every chance one or more of them would disintegrate like a Dire Wraith after a blow to the head.

Loki still did not want to even _think_ about blows to the head.

Gunna, their saviour, had returned with two of the kitchenmaids, bearing platters of... fried things. Eggs. Bread. Diced root vegetable. Chunks of what Loki tentatively identified as leftover roast boar. There was not a vitamin to be seen, and George muttered that he was getting scurvy just looking at the food. Still, according to Mitchell, this was exactly what was called for, and despite his grumblings George seemed to concur.

Gunna also, rather apologetically, offered a steaming pot of some beverage, saying, "We take this in the kitchen. It's a servants' drink, but it might help."

"What is it?" Loki asked politely. After all she had done for them, Loki would probably drink poison if she offered it. Indeed, had she offered him poison an hour before, he would have accepted gratefully.

"We dry the leaves of certain plants," Gunna said nervously, pouring out a mug and offering it to him. "Then we pour boiling water over them and-- "

Loki took his first sip. His eyes widened. "Tea," he announced.

"You have _tea_ on Asgard?" George demanded. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"I did not know," Loki replied, clutching the life-giving beverage. "Truly, Gunna, you should probably flee if you do not wish to be embraced. Thank you."

The maids giggled and took their leave, while the recovering housemates took the food and decamped outdoors.

"Well, this is much better," Mitchell sighed finally, his recovery apparently complete.

"Speaking of 'much better,'" Loki spoke up, glancing around, "how are you all? I was so caught up in my own concerns yesterday that I neglected to ask."

"You mean about the-- " Annie gestured like something coming down from the sky and exploding. Loki nodded-- still cautiously, but nodded. "Not as shaken up as I was, I think." She glanced around at the boys, who also nodded. "It was a shock, of course, especially that Steve ordered it. I suppose I didn't stop to think of the... the war angle. And it was strange to see Thor call in an air strike. I suppose you've seen that side of him before."

Loki played with his fork and nodded. "Honestly, yes. Indeed, I have shown that side of myself before now. Not just to Jotunheim, I mean. There have been occasions when it seemed necessary."

Annie nodded again. "I think we keep forgetting things like that." She glanced at George and Mitchell, who made noises of agreement. "And if the Red Skull is trying to take over the world, people are going to get hurt. Period." What Annie meant was "killed," but since they all knew it, no one belaboured the point.

"Being an Avenger isn't all rescuing cats from trees," Mitchell agreed. George burst into a spluttering giggle around a mouthful of tea, and Loki had to pat him on the back.

"Sorry," George choked. "I'm just... imagining Nick Fury... "

"I was imagining Tony Stark," Loki admitted.

"Yes, trying to pretend he thought it was beneath him, and secretly scratching the cat behind the ears," Annie giggled.

"Well, you are in better health than I expected, after last night," Thor said from the foot of the steps. The four friends jumped, then made welcoming noises and shifted around so that Thor could join them. Gunna had of course brought a plate for Annie, who was of course not eating, so Loki handed it to Thor who helped himself from what was left on the platters.

"I was actually expecting you much earlier," Loki admitted.

Thor smiled. "I had intended to wake you, but did not rise in time."

That, Loki deduced, translated as "I decided it would be kinder to give you time to recover." He smiled at his brother and offered the pot. "Tea?"

"I would not say no," Thor agreed, picking up the unused mug. "Your skills in foraging have not deserted you, brother."

"We were rescued by a very kind young woman named Gunna," Loki replied. "I must ask you to commend her to her supervisor. Your word would carry more weight than mine." Loki set his empty plate carefully down next to his feet-- it was of polished metal so there was little need to be terribly cautious, but good manners dictated Loki return it in as unscuffed a condition as he could manage. "Now, will you tell us of your trip to Jotunheim?"

"Gladly, though first I would like to hear of your activities," Thor countered. "You appeared to have been carousing."

"Oh, is that the word?" Loki asked, with synthetic innocence.

"Yes, and do not tell me you have never heard it before," Thor said.

"I have heard it," Loki said. "I just do not believe I have ever _done_ it before. At any rate, we all had a rather upsetting day yesterday and felt in need of a drink and some form of relaxation."

"So you went to the tavern?"

"Yes. Everyone was very welcoming. It was most enjoyable." Loki was beginning to feel defensive, and also more than a little nervous. "I know I should not have gone, and Father will be angry when he hears of it, but we truly did no harm."

Thor poked at his food. "Honestly, Loki, if Father gets wind of what you did, you can probably expect him to be more relieved than angry." At Loki's bewildered expression, he said gently, "It really is not like you, to meekly follow the letter of the law as you have been doing. I think Mother and Father have both been worried."

Loki smiled stiffly, his good mood rapidly evaporating. "Yes, well, it is hardly surprising to know that, even when I try to do the right thing, I somehow still manage to do the wrong thing."

Thor put his fork down. "Loki, stop."

Mitchell glanced around at his friends and started to rise. "I think you two need a moment-- "

"Only if Loki prefers you withdraw," Thor said. Loki shook his head. Mitchell reluctantly settled back down. Thor went on, "I did not mean that anyone was displeased with you. Only worried. It is not the same thing. If your friends see you behaving in a way that seems unlike you, they will also worry about you, but not because they are angry." Shamefaced, Loki nodded without looking up.

Thor sighed. "You asked about Jotunheim. Father and I, and Sif and the Warriors, accompanied Byleistr and Helblindi via the Bifrost. We landed and were immediately accosted by Jotun guards. As you can imagine, the poor creatures were considerably confused: having left their supposed king in the palace, they could not understand why a _second_ Byleistr, and a second Helblindi, were appearing in company with the Allfather and his guard. I think they might actually have attacked what they mistook for a false Byleistr and Helblindi, but they did not dare offer such an insult to the Allfather and thus be the ones who actually provoked war.

"That confusion permitted Byleistr to announce himself as the true king, and demand an audience with the false one. The guards understandably decided the safest course was to escort us to the palace and let someone else deal with it. There, the false king made a very serious error in judgment: he sent word to have us executed out of hand."

Loki stared. " _All_ of you? Including _Father?_ "

Thor smiled. "All of us. Including Father. The rest of the king's council being neither stupid nor suicidal, and the situation appearing to them desperate, they countermanded the order and hastened to interview us."

"Apparently, Dire Wraiths are not as smart as Wilbur believed," Loki mused.

"But every bit as arrogant as you surmised," Thor agreed. "I seem to recall that when you investigated the Jotun rooms in Vanaheim, you noted the isolation of the king?" Loki nodded. "Yes, well, so had the council, and it worried them. Concerned them," Thor corrected himself, trying not to look significantly at Loki.

"Yes, yes, you have made your point," Loki said grumpily, leaning over to filch a piece of meat off Thor's plate. He did not really want it, but the action had its intended purpose of reassuring Thor that Loki was no longer sulking. Or frightened, which in Loki often looked like the same thing. Speaking around his mouthful-- also intended to reassure Thor that his guard had come down again-- Loki asked, "What happened when the council arrived?"

"They very quickly realized the supposedly false Byleistr sounded and behaved more like the king they knew than the one who currently occupied the throne. They quizzed him extensively about recent history and palace trivia, and Helblindi about the events of the last two reigns.

"The council was beginning to be really convinced when the false Helblindi appeared, sent by the impostor-king to deal with us." Thor smiled. "I had taken the precaution of informing our Jotun companions of the weakness you and Tony Stark noted in the Dire Wraiths' guard, and to warn them against coming to grips with one. When he was confronted by the impostor, the real Helblindi chose rather direct action: he called up a club of ice and struck the other in the head." Thor paused. "I have no doubt that in his youth he was a formidable warrior. As you can imagine, it caused rather a sensation when the false Helblindi disintegrated. Particularly when the real Helblindi allowed the councilors to examine his club, and they found it to be of perfectly normal Jotun ice, not ensorcelled in any way.

"After that it was a fairly simple affair-- I received the impression the Jotun are not enslaved to formality in such matters." Loki tried not to think about what that would have meant for him, had he fallen to Jotunheim instead of Midgard. "We all confronted the false king in the throne room, where close examination of the sort of ice he was able to conjure revealed it to be... somehow lacking. I do not understand the details but they obviously meant a great deal to the Jotun, who were understandably enraged at being played for fools like this. Challenged by the real Byleistr to duel, the false one did what he could with magic, but was overcome. And killed, Byleistr apparently believing it was not worth the risk to try to imprison him."

"Based on our experience trying to do so, I cannot argue with that decision," Loki admitted.

"Nor can I," Thor agreed. "I know you were distressed about Wilbur's death, but-- "

"You need not worry," Loki interrupted. "I am having no spasms of sentiment over these two. They deliberately tried to start a _war_. I know it is hypocritical of me, but-- "

"But you are more yourself now," Thor said generously.

"I seem to be a rather less reprehensible version of myself now," Loki corrected. "Let us be honest, even before I went mad, I would have felt little sympathy at the idea of the Jotun being betrayed like that by a false king."

"You are not the only one," Thor pointed out. "We both, unfortunately, needed a sharp lesson." He set down his plate and added awkwardly, "I spoke to Helblindi again, before we set out for Jotunheim. I think he does feel something for you, Loki. There may someday be... hope for reconciliation."

Loki smiled crookedly. "That is very optimistic of you, brother."

Thor sighed. "And perhaps a little naive, I know. Also, I keep wishing we had known about Helblindi when our nursemaid was telling us those frightening stories about Jotun monsters and the like. It might have saved you some bad dreams."

"I did not have bad dreams because of Hildr's stories," Loki defended her. "I was already waking at night before she began to tell them. She told the stories in the hope they would make me stay in bed. They did not work very well-- I was more afraid of whatever woke me than I was of the monsters lurking in the dark."

"Oh. Well, then, what did wake you?"

"I don't know, really. I would just dream of being cold and alone, and wake up frightened."

"You were always freezing when you got in bed with me," Thor agreed. "I don't remember when you began to do that."

"After Hildr left. She used to let me sit with her until I warmed up and calmed down. I did not like the woman who replaced her-- "

"Yes, I remember that," Thor said. "I had no idea until then that you could conjure worms."

Loki grinned. "Anyway, after Hildr left, I used to go to you. I did not like the woman who replaced Hildr, and then by the time we were on our third caretaker there seemed little point in becoming fond of them."

George spoke up. "Did you tell your parents about the dreams?"

Loki blinked. "No. It was a nursery matter." He was conscious of the expressions on the faces of his friends, and tried to explain. "It was much as you might see in those period dramas Annie likes so much: the nursery was another world entirely. Obviously, Father had many things on his mind, and Mother... well, anyway, we would visit them every day, unless they were very busy, or we were fussy or ill, but our real lives were in the nursery."

"I've never much liked that bit of the period dramas," Annie remarked. "But if you were upset about something-- you said you weren't really attached to any of your nurses after the first one."

"I did not mind them," Thor said. "I think they liked me."

"Everyone likes you," Loki pointed out. "You are exceedingly likable."

"Okay, so Thor could go to the nurse if he was upset about something," Annie said. "What about you, Loki?"

"Thor," Loki replied instantly.

"Yes, but you told us there was quite a long time when you and Thor weren't getting along," Annie insisted. "What did you do then?" Silence. "What about your mother? She must have been-- "

"She was very beautiful, and very far away," Loki remembered. "We would be tidy and well-behaved, and she would pet us. It is the same in your television programs, I believe. Those are about history, are they not?"

"Yes," Mitchell said. "If you ask me, that's why the British ruling classes were loony and bent on conquest."

"There may be parallels," Loki shrugged. He glanced sideways at Thor. "I was actually thinking about this not very long ago. It occurs to me that I was unjust to you for many years."

"You do not need to-- " Thor muttered.

"No, listen to me. It was not normal, the way I clung to you. I can hardly apologize for that, since as we now know I was not a normal child, but you had no way of knowing that, and you were only a child yourself. I must have been suffocating. No wonder you needed to separate yourself from me."

"I should have been more understanding," Thor muttered.

"Understanding of what?" Loki pointed out. "Neither of us knew why I was so strange. It was hardly your job to be my caretaker, and you did the best you could for much longer than was fair or reasonable. As I say, I cannot really apologize for being a troubled child, but at some point after I grew up I should have been able to see why you needed to get away from me. I am sorry for being so angry at you for so long."

"Since it sounds like you didn't have anyone else, it's not that surprising you couldn't think clearly about it," Annie spoke up. "When someone's having a crisis, it's not exactly fair to expect him to solve it by himself."

"Well, since there was no one else to solve it for me, and considering what a mess I made as a result of not solving it, it seems to me I should have tried harder," Loki said, almost sharply.

"Some parents would consider it part of their job," Annie persisted. "What happened after you found out you were Jotun?"

Loki compressed his lips. "You are being unfair. They tried. After I learned the truth, Father tried, and I shouted at him until he fell into the Odinsleep. I don't suppose the two events were directly connected, but it was frightening. I managed not to shout at Mother, I remembered at least that I must not, but... Really, imagine how difficult it was for her. How could she possibly have known what to do?"

"I have no idea," Annie snapped. "Maybe if she had practiced a little beforehand, with your nightmares for instance, or when Thor abandoned you, she might have had a clue."

"You are not being fair," Loki repeated.

" _I'm_ not being fair?" Annie almost shouted. "It's sweet of you to be so loyal to your mother, Loki, but if you hadn't lost it and gone on a rampage, she'd still be pretending everything was just lovely while you died of loneliness. _I'm_ not being fair?"

Loki opened his mouth and Thor spoke up. "Loki, stop arguing. Remember how angry Jane was, the first time you met her."

"It is hardly the same thing," Loki protested.

"Of course it is. I was hurt. You were hurt. It would be worse if Annie was not angry on your behalf. Although I very strongly suggest you not speak like this before anyone aside from ourselves," Thor added to Annie.

"Of course," Annie said sheepishly. "Loki, I'm sorry. I know you love your mother."

"And she loves me," Loki insisted, his voice beginning to tremble. "The first time I came back, when I was in the healing rooms, she held my hands and cried over me. She does-- "

"Of course she does," Annie interrupted, taking hold of his arm. Loki did not look at her, but nor did he pull away. "I'm sure she did her best."

"I do not want to be angry at her, too," Loki muttered. "I have been too angry at too many people. I cannot-- "

"Of course not," Annie soothed. "I'm sorry. Water under the bridge. I just... I'm sorry."

Loki briefly wondered whether the tavern was open at this hour. He pulled his arm free and stood. "Will you excuse me for a moment?" Without waiting for an answer, he went inside, leaving his friends on the steps.

Some twenty minutes later, he was splashing cold water on his face when someone tapped on the door.

"Loki?" He had been expecting Thor, but it was Annie. "Can I come in?"

It was on the tip of his tongue to respond, _Of course you can, you can pass through doors if you want to,_ but it seemed the wrong time for sarcasm.

"Yes," he called, and looked into the mirror to see if his eyes were as red as he suspected. Yes. Lovely.

Annie opened the door, sidled into the room, and closed it behind herself.

"I am really sorry I upset you like that. I didn't mean to."

"I know," Loki mumbled. "I just… " He took a deep breath. "I always told myself she loved me, and _now_ it appears I was correct, but _then_ , it was very much like one of those treasures Father keeps locked in the vault: something that was there but could not be touched and was not very… useful… in everyday life. Do you see what I mean?"

"I think so," Annie said. "You figured she'd keep loving you as long as you never made any demands on her. As long as she didn't have to do anything about it."

Loki blinked. "You are harsh," he remarked. "But… I was such a troublesome child, always either sulking about something or playing spiteful tricks to make people notice me. Nobody liked me, except her. In small doses. In spite of what a tiresome brat I was. And I had to be careful that she did not realize just _how_ awful I was, because if she did-- "

"Because if she did, she would stop loving you, and it was better to have someone who loved you at a distance than nobody at all. Even though the way she loved you didn't actually do you any good." Loki did not reply, and Annie crossed the room to stand beside him. "Like you said out there on the steps, she does love you. You were right about that. But… I'm on your side, okay? We all are, the boys and I. We like Thor, but we love you, and we don't have any attachments at all to anyone else in Asgard. So once in a while I get angry at people you love, because I don't feel any need at all to make myself be fair to them or see their side of the story. I mostly don't care, to be honest. I'm sure both your parents had lots of reasons for why they didn't let you know they loved you, and they did their best, and I don't care, because they both hurt you a lot and it doesn't matter that they didn't mean to."

"The same can be said of what I did to Jotunheim," Loki pointed out.

"Yes, that's true. I'm sure they don't care that you were in the middle of a nervous breakdown when you attacked them. And actually, I _do_ care about that, because as far as I can see the only Jotun who ever really hurt you was Laufey-- and maybe Helblindi-- and a lot of innocent people suffered for it. But it's still not the same thing, because you weren't in a state to think clearly about what you were doing. That's not the same thing at all as taking responsibility for a baby and never stopping to think that being abandoned and then carried off by monsters might have an effect on him."

Loki stared. "I beg your pardon?"

"You were a baby," Annie repeated. "There you were, left all alone, you probably knew your mother was with you but you couldn't make her respond to you-- and then Odin shows up? Do you suppose you had ever even _seen_ an Aesir before? You would have been hoping for someone blue and comforting and what you got was this wild-looking creature with a beard and one eye, all armoured and smelly and so frightening you turned yourself into something completely different to try to stop him from eating you. And he took you away from everything familiar, everything that might have made you feel safe, and surrounded you with monstrous creatures. You probably didn't even realize at that point that you looked Aesir yourself, you would have just known that everyone _else_ looked wrong. Smelled wrong. Sounded wrong.

"And then after a while you forgot about the blue people who loved you, you got used to the… pink monsters, but even though you weren't afraid of them anymore, you remembered being afraid of _something._ And all you had was some poor tired maid who had no idea why you were scared, and no better ideas than to try to frighten it out of you? And a little boy just a bit older than you were? Really? And then after you managed to get attached to them, they were both taken away from you too? In those period dramas there's usually a nanny who's there for the children all their early lives. You and Thor didn't even get that."

"Thor turned out all right," Loki mumbled. "I should have-- "

" _Thor_ was not _all right_. Thor grew up needing to be the centre of attention all the time, and made friends who let him always be the most important one, and couldn't share them, and when things didn't go his way he threw a temper tantrum. You said a little while ago that you should have realized when you grew up why he needed to get away from you. Well, then, _he_ should have realized, when _he_ grew up, why you hung onto him so hard. He wasn't as badly off as you were, because he got off to a less horrible start, but he wasn't okay either."

Loki pushed his wet hair back from his forehead. "What would you have me do?" he asked, and noticed his tone did not sound sulky anymore. Desperate, perhaps. "They both love me. They have proved it. They try to demonstrate it. What would you have me do?"

Annie patted his arm. "I don't know. Maybe there really is no point in going back over all this, because you can't change the past, but… you're different when you're here. Everything bothers you more. Asgard isn't good for you. At least, the palace isn't. It's… haunted, and believe me, I know haunted." She tilted her head and considered him. "How about this: you keep giving your parents the benefit of the doubt, because they really did act with good intentions, but stop making excuses for them that put all the blame on you. Because you really could not help being troubled, and until you fell off the Bifrost, nobody ever tried to help you get better. You all did the best you could with what you had."

Loki eyed her. "You do not believe that."

"I do, really. They did their best. It just wasn't very good, and it wasn't what you needed. How's that?"

He couldn't help it, he had to laugh. "You really are severe," he said, leaning toward her.

"Tough as nails, that's me," Annie replied, and kissed him.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which we attempt, with mixed success, to steer this story back onto a plottier track. Face it, as long as Loki is in Asgard, he's going to end up dealing with either his own issues or someone else's.

Loki and Annie were walking back toward the steps when they encountered George, Mitchell and Thor on their way to, at long last, meet with the prisoners. The three cast anxious looks at him, and then Annie. Finally, Mitchell spoke:

"Okay?" he asked tentatively. 

As he and Annie joined the others, Loki had a nearly insurmountable urge to reply, "Fine! I just had an argument with someone I love, and have not yet attempted to kill myself or anyone else!" He quelled it, on the grounds such a comment might appear as unhelpful sarcasm. Although really, considering who was there to hear him, they might realize the remark should indeed be taken at face value. 

"Okay," he replied instead, and managed a smile. Mitchell patted Loki's upper arm. Feeling lighter than he had in any recent (sober) moment on Asgard, Loki turned to the rest of the group. "So. We finally face up to Nick Fury."

"Still not too late to die of the hangover," George pointed out hopefully. Loki could feel the smile on his face come to life as he rubbed the back of George's neck and replied,

"Cheer up, George. Nick Fury is far from the most terrifying one-eyed being on Asgard."

Loki was correct, but anyone who had never seen Odin really angry might easily be forgiven for assuming he was exaggerating. Even Loki was perfectly willing to let Thor lead the way to find Fury. 

Most of the rescued prisoners were together, in the gardens behind the envoys' hall. It was clear the palace staff was taking great pains to ensure their comfort, and the results were already evident: Senator Stern looked much brighter, Justin Hammer no longer gibbered whenever anyone looked at him, while Dr. Strange-- a watchful Clea by his side-- rested in the sunshine in a comfortable chair, and even managed to produce a greeting that had not been written by William Shakespeare. 

Nick Fury and Maria Hill were not with the others. It took no great insight into the mind of a human to perceive how relieved Hammer and Stern were that this was the case. Loki would have been willing to wager those two would be hard-pressed to decide whether they were more afraid of Hydra, or Fury. Thor, after a formal welcome to Asgard and promise of the swiftest possible return safely home, led his companions in a search for the two SHIELD agents. 

This went on without success for long enough that Loki began to worry the pair had fled the envoys' hall and were even now pestering Heimdall to send them back to Midgard. 

Well, in truth, Loki was not so much _worried_ as _gleefully hoping_. Loki's attitude toward the Guardian had softened considerably since the days when he seemed to feel Heimdall's eye upon him as a malign thing, waiting to catch him out and revel in his punishment-- 

(He was no longer sure how much of that feeling had ever been real, and how much had only existed in his mind, but of late the oppressive sense of a disapproving eye upon him seemed to have gone away, and for that he was grateful-- )

Loki almost physically shook his head to clear his thoughts, and began over: his attitude toward the Guardian had softened considerably of late, but he was in need of a good laugh, and the thought of Nick Fury squaring off against Heimdall struck him as extremely funny. At least in theory. In practice, perhaps he would prefer to wait until he was sure his headache was really gone before he attempted to enjoy such a show.

The point turned out to be moot. Loki's guess was incorrect: Fury and Hill turned up in the building after all, in a small chamber ordinarily used by the envoys to write letters and to speak together privately. Hill sat at the large desk, while Fury leaned back in a heavy armchair apparently intended to stimulate the deep thoughts of ambassadors. Before Hill were several sheets of paper covered in notes and doodles. Plates and cups from their breakfasts were stacked neatly on the floor near the door. 

It was a deceptively peaceful scene, Hill and Fury apparently engaged in contemplation. This changed the moment the door opened and Thor stepped inside, the others trailing loyally but nervously behind. 

Fury turned, narrowed his one dark eye, and said, "You!" It was not clear who he addressed, but everyone except Thor took a half-step backward, and Loki was certain Thor took a firmer grip on Mjolnir. 

"Greetings, Colonel Fury," Thor spoke, a little too quickly, and then seemed to remember his dignity. "I welcome you to Asgard, and apologize for the delay in returning to you. Greetings, Agent Hill." 

Thor was very charming, and it was a rare woman who was immune to his smile. Agent Hill was one of them. She fixed Thor with a fair approximation of Fury's acidic gaze, rather like a young basilisk imitating its elder.

Fury did not rise from his chair. In Loki's experience, humans were much like Aesir, in that they tended to prefer to be on the same level with any to whom they were speaking. Loki would have risen from the chair rather than allow Thor to loom so, but Nick Fury seemed authentically at his ease, a commander accustomed to turn in his seat, receive reports from underlings, and then dismiss them. Fury's entire posture told Thor to get on with the explanation, and be smart about it. 

Thor did. 

"The first order of business was of course to return the Jotun king and his advisor to their realm," Thor explained. "We have done so, and have secured their cooperation in defeating Hydra."

"The Jotun were those two big blue guys?" Fury asked. 

"Yes. The big blue guys," Thor confirmed, his tone so deadly serious he had to be suppressing amusement. 

"Huh. Good work," Fury said, very much the commander to the underling. Loki suppressed a dangerous gust of laughter at the idea of Fury saying such a thing, in such a tone, to Odin. Part of him, the part that reveled in chaos, would have dearly loved to put the two one-eyed kings in a room together just to see what would happen. 

The rest of Loki, the part that preferred to keep his head upon his shoulders, would have moved worlds to prevent such a thing from happening, at least when he was also within the same realm. 

Fury, as though he could hear Loki's thoughts, suddenly drilled him with his one eye. "And where were you, while this was going on? Did you go to Jotunheim, too?"

The use of the realm's name suggested Fury had been disingenuous in implying he did not know what the "big blue guys" were called. Loki spared a moment to reflect that Fury really was as bad as Odin, in terms of pointlessly playing cards close to the chest one moment and then revealing them the next. It did, however, have the probably-intended effect of making it difficult to figure out what either knew or either would do next.

"No," Loki replied. "I am... not welcome on Jotunheim. My friends and I remained here, awaiting Thor's return and word of what should be done next."

Fury leaned suddenly forward in his chair, and Loki resisted the urge to step backwards. "Are you _hungover?"_

"I believe that is the correct diagnosis, yes," Loki admitted. "However, my faculties are in working order once again." His next question really did need to be asked, but Loki was honest enough, at least with himself, to admit to the unworthy urge to take the spotlight off himself by wrong-footing someone else. Well, unworthy was, as the mortals would say, his middle name. Turning to Agent Hill, Loki asked in a tone of sincerity, "I feel we should ask-- are you indeed the current director of SHIELD, or is Colonel Fury?"

It was a fair question, of course: they still did not know whether Maria Hill had been appointed director of SHIELD by the false Senator Stern, or whether Agent Hill had been replaced by a Dire Wraith first. Either way, of course, the replacement was certainly invalid, first because it was almost certain it had been the false Stern who declared it, and also given that Fury had been kidnapped and imprisoned rather than pushed into retirement. Still, Hill's perspective on the situation needed to be clarified, since she might well be under the impression this discussion was hers to lead. 

Loki's secondary motivation, that of deflecting attention from himself, was successful: Fury turned a look of flaming malevolence first upon Loki, and then on Hill. Agent Hill was certainly intrepid, but no one short of Odin himself could have been unaffected by that glare. Dragons might have quailed. 

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Hill asserted, trying to appear as if she could not feel flames fanning the side of her face. "I've never been director of SHIELD."

Loki smiled and inclined his head. "Thank you, Agent Hill, for the clarification. Director Fury, I apologize for the digression, but for the past months, since your supposed retirement, SHIELD had been led by a Dire Wraith in the form of Agent Hill, and guided by another in the form of Senator Stern."

"And armed with weapons built by Justin Hammer?" Fury guessed. Loki suppressed the urge to smile in congratulations at Fury, as he might have with a normal mortal: that would undoubtedly be a suicidal act of condescension. 

"Yes, with weapons designed by Justin Hammer. Presumably, Hydra and the Dire Wraiths knew it would be useless to approach Stark Industries to support their evil plan, but Hammer is-- "

"-- a venal little wretch," Fury completed the thought, when Loki hesitated. 

"Or words to that effect," Loki agreed. "Now, having removed you and the others from the custody of Hydra, and foiled the secondary plot to use Jotunheim to distract Asgard from what is happening to Midgard, we are in a position to concentrate on what to do about Hydra's anticipated next move."

Fury nodded, then glanced at Thor. "Steve said he was going to line up some allies. Any thoughts on that?"

Thor shook his head. "I assume Tony Stark's friend War Machine will be the first one approached, but aside from that, I do not know." 

Fury sighed. "All right. How fast can we get back there?"

~oOo~

"Hell, Tony, of course I'm in," Rhodey said simply.

~oOo~

If Coulson considered he had drawn the short straw, he was far too professional to say so. He sat in the diner sipping bitter black coffee and looking across the table at the Thing. 

"So," said the Thing-- Coulson thought, irrelevantly, that it would be appropriate if he sounded like the actor Sam Elliott, whose deep voice always made Coulson think of two tombstones rubbing together-- "the Avengers have run into a problem they can't handle?"

"Not on their own," Coulson shrugged, and smiled pleasantly at the waitress as she arrived to refill his coffee. The Thing pushed his own mug forward and gave the woman a look like the Appalachians in a friendly mood. She smiled back, poured the coffee, and fled. Coulson made a mental note to overtip.

Then he explained to the representative of the Fantastic Four what they were up against.

~oOo~

"Hydra?" asked the old man in the wheelchair. Steve nodded. The second old man, the black-clad one with the guarded expression, frowned. 

"And you ask our help in protecting the humans against this threat? Why should we?"

Steve was a soldier, not a diplomat, but he understood that mutants, like everyone else, were motivated primarily by self-interest. 

"It's not just the humans," he replied. "Hydra, and their allies the Dire Wraiths, plan on conquering Earth. You may be familiar with their leader, Johann Schmidt." The guarded expression didn't change, but in the bottom of Steve's line of vision, he could see the old man's hands go tense. Steve went on, "If Schmidt-- the Red Skull-- gains the power he seeks, do you really think he won't find a _use_ for mutants? As experimental subjects, if nothing else?" 

For a second, Steve thought he had overplayed his hand. But the two old men were quiet, regarding him, for a moment. And then he could feel something, a sensation of something-- _someone_ \-- stealing through his mind. It felt like... well, it was as if he had left a guest unattended in his living room while he went to check something in the kitchen. The guest was walking around the room looking at the titles on his bookshelf and the records in his collection. There was a sense of friendly curiosity, of nothing being really disturbed, but everything being thoroughly examined. 

And then the sensation was gone, and the man in the wheelchair said, "He's telling us the truth."

The second man snorted. "Even _I_ can see that, Charles. He is an advertisement for transparent honesty."

Professor X smiled. "Common enemy, Erik."

"Yes, all right," said Magneto. 

~oOo~

Nick Fury and Maria Hill wanted further details. Partway through their briefing, there was a sharp rap at the door. It was too authoritative to be a servant. When George opened it, Clea Strange was on the other side.

"My husband and I have been discussing this," she said, without preamble. "He will be in no condition to assist you for some time, but if he may stay here to recover, I am willing to offer what assistance I can." 

With the inhibitor off, Clea's powers had already returned to her, and she seemed little the worse for her experience, except of course for the anger. Loki rather envied her that: from the little he could recall, in the aftermath of his own captivity he had experienced nothing so powerful or useful. 

Fury, who seemed to know her well enough to know what she could contribute to the effort, had just accepted her offer with thanks, when there was another knock. This time, it was the respectful tap of a nervous servant. George pulled the door open.

"Oh-- hello again, Gunna," he said cheerfully. "What can we do for you?"

Gunna gave him a look that implied she thought all the mad sorcerer's friends were just as mad as he was, though not in threatening ways, and timidly addressed Loki: 

"The queen would like to see you, sir. And your friends. In the reception hall." She cut a scared glance at Thor and added in a squeak, "Not the crown prince."

Thor frowned, but it was a worried frown rather than an affronted one. He glanced at Loki and made a transparent effort to shape his expression into a smile. Loki made an equal effort, and smiled back. Then he turned to the anxious young woman.

"Certainly, Gunna. Thank you, we can find our own way." Gunna curtseyed and, with obvious gratitude, fled.

They were in the corridor, Loki leading the way to the reception hall, when Annie grabbed his hand and pulled him to a halt. 

"Loki, take a deep breath," she ordered. 

Loki tried to pull away. "Mother is expecting us. We must not keep her-- "

"Let her wait for a second," Annie said bluntly. "You're breathing as if you're on your way to battle Dire Wraiths."

"It's true," Mitchell spoke up. Loki glanced at George, who looked apologetic and nodded, too. Annie pulled him around to face her and took hold of his other hand. 

"Look at me," she ordered. "What are you scared of?" 

"I am not scared," Loki grumbled, trying not to clutch at her. 

"The hell you're not," Annie replied inelegantly. "What is it? You were okay the last time we were here, when she came to see us before we left for Vanaheim. Is it because this time she sent for you and didn't say why?" 

Loki looked away, chewed his lower lip, and found his eyes inexorably drawn back to Annie's.

"I should have, have sent a message to her, last night. To let her know I was back in Asgard. I should have made certain she knew."

"You don't think anyone told her?" Annie asked. 

"It is not that. It was thoughtless of me, careless of her feelings." Loki could feel his hands twist in Annie's. He was not trying to free himself, it was just that he found himself unable to keep them still. Annie loosened her grip enough that Loki could easily move his hands within hers, and then said, 

"Okay, I can see what you mean. It probably would have been a nice idea to do that. I wonder why you didn't?"

Loki swallowed. "It is not the custom, for me to... "

"Ah." Annie looked understanding. "She would send for you, when she wanted to see you?" Loki nodded. "So... if she didn't, you weren't expected to go looking for her?" Another nod. "So you just didn't think of it?" Nod. "Okay, then, Loki, you're doing what she expects, aren't you? You waited until she let you know she wanted you."

"Yes, but now... things are rather different, and I wonder... perhaps she expected me to ask for her, and is… unhappy because I did not." On the last visit, Father had sent for Mother, so of course Loki had not had to think about whether expectations had changed. Now he was wondering about that, and it worried him. 

"That wouldn't exactly be fair, would it?" Annie asked reasonably. "To change the rules and not tell you?" Loki said nothing, but he suspected his friends could read on his face the knowledge that this would not be the first time a rule was changed, and Loki was not apprised of the fact until after he had broken it. It was enough to make someone break rules on purpose, just to find out which of them were still in force. 

Annie released his hands and let her own slide up his arms, holding him above the elbows. "Any of us could have thought about your mum. We could have suggested you send word to her, but we didn't think of it either." She paused for a moment, then asked, "Did you _want_ to see her last night?"

Loki felt his face get hot. That was, of course, the crux of the matter. "Not really. I was... it was not pleasant, to speak to the Jotun, and apologize, and know they can never forgive me. To speak of… I wanted… " He glanced helplessly around at George and Mitchell, then back to Annie. "I do not have to pretend things with you -- " 

"Okay," Annie said gently. "You didn't want to have to make believe you were all right, and that's what you do with your mother, yes?"

Loki nodded wordlessly. Part of him was sure he was being unfair to his mother, remembered her tears in the healing room, and before they went to Vanaheim, knew that meant she cared for him, and probably also cared what he felt and thought. He should be _over_ this. Why was everything still so _difficult?_

Well... for more than nine hundred years, his interactions with his mother had been limited to polite social intercourse, interspersed, if Father was not present to punish him, with occasional disappointed rebukes for lies or a prank that went too far. Loki had long ago stopped hoping either of them would think to ask him why he did such things, or have any curiosity about his side of the story. 

In days past, Father had expressed almost no interest in him, except when Loki made him angry, but Mother would permit short... civilized... visits. They would engage in what the humans aptly called "small talk." These interactions were soothing at the time, but he would go away feeling more sore and riled and lonely than ever. There were always so many things he wished he could tell her, talk about with her, with _someone_... If only she would ask what he thought, what he felt… If only she had ever seemed inclined to listen. 

When he thought about his mother throughout his life, Loki's mostly remembered wishing he could have... _more_... Even before he knew he was a foundling, however, he knew he was supposed to feel grateful for what he got. And what he got were ineffectual kindly noises that never amounted to anything. 

Last night, he had been made to think of the Jotun mother who gave him life, and it had rattled him. It was the first time he had any sense of Gunnlod as a _person,_ as his _mother,_ and he did not know what to feel about it. He still did not, but at least with his friends he did not have to pretend he was not upset, did not have to worry that thinking about Gunnlod would insult and hurt them. The fact they had ended up carousing in a pub, rather than having long intimate conversations about the matter, did not diminish his appreciation of the fact his friends cared about his feelings and did not love him less if he expressed them. 

"Okay," Annie said now. "Listen to me. I don't know why your mother asked for the boys and me as well as you, but she probably wants to make sure you know the people you care about are important to her, too. That's progress, right?"

"It must be," Loki agreed. Annie looked hard at him, and Loki mumbled, "It might also be that she believes, if there are other people in the room, I will refrain from speaking of anything uncomfortable."

"Ah. I didn't think of that," Annie admitted. "In that case, just remember, _we're your backup._ Okay? If you _do_ feel like saying something to your mother, whatever you feel like saying, we're not going to be upset or uncomfortable." Loki cut a glance at George and Mitchell, who nodded. It was very likely they would be unable to help being uncomfortable-- at least George who was, after all, English-- but he knew the permission was given sincerely. "Whatever you need to do, you can do it. Or not. Whatever. Okay?"

"Okay," Loki almost whispered. Annie squeezed his hands.

"And if you find you need someone to help you sort of get started-- we're here for that as well. Just give us a sign. It's fine." Loki nodded mutely. Annie smiled at him. "Right. Let's go, then."

~oOo~

It might have helped if there had been tea. The reception hall was much too large for a group of five, even sitting in low chairs in one corner of the huge, cold room. Frigga was waiting when they walked in, rose and kissed Loki on the cheek, greeted his friends. Without quite knowing how it had happened, Loki found himself sitting in a chair opposite his mother, with Annie on one side of him and George and Mitchell on the other. Given the configuration of the chairs, it was impossible for him to be any farther away from his mother. 

Loki experienced a sinking feeling: nothing had changed. Frigga intended to keep things on the old footing, tiptoeing across the surface, as though there had never been any lies or betrayals or unforgivable crimes or banishment. Perhaps his mother could only summon up reserves of emotion in near-death situations. Perhaps it was inconvenient and thoughtless of him, not to have actually died on the occasions when she thought he was about to.

Perhaps now he was being really, unforgivably, cruel and unfair. 

And then his mother's hands clasped together and twisted momentarily, in a gesture that somehow looked familiar, before she placed them in her lap once again. It took Loki a moment to realize he normally saw that gesture from above, looking down on his own hands, when he was in the grip of genuine emotion. No one had ever seemed to recognize his tell for what it was. Perhaps it was a matter of indifference to most observers, whether he really felt anything or was simply a cool and polished liar. 

Regardless, the sight of his mother's anxious hands momentarily gave Loki a different perspective, a sudden rush of sympathy and hope. He leaned forward a little and smiled. 

"I am very glad you sent for us. I would not like to leave again without speaking to you." 

Frigga, her hands very still now, smiled her old serene smile. Loki found the apprehension coming back as he searched her demeanour for any other sign of emotion. Perhaps his guess about her hands had been wrong. 

"Your father tells me you spoke to the Jotun before they returned to their realm?" she asked, with polite interest. Loki nodded. "And will they assist you and your friends, with the trouble on Midgard?"

Loki blinked, felt as though he had missed a step in the dark. Surely this was not what she really wanted to speak about-- ?

"I do not know," Loki admitted. "You might ask Thor, or Father, whether any agreements were reached." He was aware of bitterness in his mouth as he confessed to his own failure to have the information that interested her.

Almost of its own volition, Loki felt his left hand reach out, and then Annie's cool fingers wrapped around his. Her grip tightened and then relaxed a little, and he glanced sideways to see her looking a question at him. 

It was cowardly in the extreme, but he nodded. Annie squeezed his hand and turned her brightly innocent smile upon Frigga. 

"We didn't really get into that. They mostly talked about how Loki figured out the business of the fake king, and about how sorry he is for what he did to Jotunheim. And as he was explaining that, he ended up telling them about being Jotun himself, and then he showed us-- which was a little surprising, really, because he still looked so much like himself, I was expecting him to look much more like Byleistr and Helblindi. After that Helblindi got talking about Loki's birth mother, who sounded like a really lovely person. In a strange kind of way it was almost a nice conversation, by the end of it, except when Byleistr got it into his head that since he's technically Laufey's son Loki might want to be king of Jotunheim-- "

"Wait, wait, nobody mentioned that to us," Mitchell spoke up in alarm. "You don't, do you?"

"Of course not," Loki replied, relieved beyond belief that his friends were there to turn this awkward and strangely frightening interview into the matter-of-fact banter of the house, in which you might be teasing each other but you could still _say things_. "You know how I carry on when there is no hot water for the bath. I have a horror of being cold. What would I do on a realm of ice and snow?"

"Learn to ski?" Mitchell suggested. 

"I certainly hope you convinced Byleistr of that," George spoke up, making a terrible face at Mitchell. "He doesn't think you're a... threat, does he?"

"If he does, he must be madder than I am," Loki replied bluntly. "Or was, rather. Imagine the reaction of the Jotun people, if the kinslayer appeared demanding the throne. I put the case to him as clearly as I knew how, and I think he saw sense."

"That's a relief," George muttered, and Loki smiled at him.

"I thought so," he agreed. 

"Anyway," Annie said, turning back to Frigga with an air of summing-up, and still with the friendliest smile imaginable, "what with all that, we didn't get around to talking about the business with Hydra and the Dire Wraiths. It was really more of a personal conversation." She laid her second hand on top of Loki's so she was holding his left hand in both of hers, and he glanced at her with another smile. She smiled back and addressed him deliberately, "I was really glad you let us see your other form."

Loki was not quite sure what to say to that, since at the time he had simply been trying to explain things to the two Jotun. Annie seemed to take it as a gesture of trust. 

And then it occurred to him that it was, really. He had been quite sure Annie, anyway, would not react badly. And though he had been reflexively afraid, he had not really thought Thor would, either. He would never have allowed himself to transform otherwise.

"I am very glad you were there. And Thor," he admitted. "It was a very upsetting conversation and I was grateful to have both of you with me." 

"We could tell you'd been through the wringer, when you came to find us," Mitchell commented. "Do you feel any better about it at all, now that you've had a chance to talk to them?" 

"It seems a little more… real," Loki said after a moment's thought. "I told you already that... that I think I _believe_ in Gunnlod, now that I have heard her spoken of by someone who knew her, who cared about her. I think… I think I also feel a little differently about being Jotun. Previously, when I took on that form, I was in a state of such panic and anger that it was all I could do not to rend the flesh from my bones." He shivered, and involuntarily glanced at his mother. 

Her cool smile was frozen to her lips, and she did not seem to be looking at him at first. When she realized his eyes were upon her, she said, 

"You were calm when you spoke to me about it."

"In Father's chamber?" Loki asked. 

"Yes. Quite calm," Frigga insisted. "You had had time to think about it, you accepted it, we talked about it reasonably-- " 

Loki suddenly wondered if this was what it looked like when Frigga went mad. She might have been taken in by his appearance at the time, but she could not possibly believe anymore--

Her eyes still avoided his, but Loki suddenly realized they were focused on his left hand, still held firmly in Annie's two. He looked down at the joined hands, then back up at Frigga, and she looked up at the same time. 

"It is remarkable, the difference," she said, with a brittle little laugh. "Loki, do you remember how you used to dislike being touched?" 

Even now, the impulse to agree with her, to be approved of, was difficult to resist. He could feel the words rising in his throat. He glanced sideways at George and Mitchell, and swallowed. 

"No," he replied. "I never did. I did not like it when Thor and his friends would pound on my shoulders and pretend it was in affection-- it may have been so when they did it to one another, but we all knew quite well there was no love between us, and with me it was simply an excuse to raise a bruise. I did not like that, and so I would try to escape it, but I spent years wondering what I had done to cause you to recoil from me."

Frigga repeated, in a tone so calm she might have been frozen, "You did not like to be touched. You made it clear. You used to be affectionate with Thor, and then when you grew older you avoided his touch. It was obvious, and I made sure your wishes were respected."

Either she had gone mad or had gone deaf, Loki concluded. There seemed no other explanation. 

"What did he say, when you asked him about it?" Annie spoke up, brightly remorseless. 

Frigga turned to Annie, with look almost as though she was blind. "What?"

"When you asked him. What did he say?" Annie repeated. There was a moment of silence, and then Annie persisted, "You must have asked him. 'Sweetheart, I've noticed you don't like it when your brother and his friends whack you on the shoulders as hard as they can. Does that mean you also don't want to be hugged or patted on the back or have your hand held? Ever?' You must have asked him."

"He never told me-- " Frigga began, and then stopped. 

"No," Annie said kindly, "I imagine he didn't. Loki?"

"I had no idea what was wrong," Loki said, his tone distant in his own ears. "I thought I was being punished. Or, well, that everyone was tired of dissembling, and tired of me. I was no longer a little child, there was no reason to maintain any pretense that I was cared for. I knew I was only needed for insurance, in case Thor came to harm."

" You were Jotun," Frigga said. "I thought... they must reject contact, when they are grown. I thought it was what you wanted."

Loki nodded. "That idea did occur to me, eventually. When I knew… After I had been in Bristol for a few weeks and was starting to be able to think clearly. When I noticed they-- " he gestured at his friends-- "did not seem to mind touching me, I remembered how confused I was, when everyone here suddenly did. That was when I thought perhaps it had something to do with my being Jotun. I did not know whether it was an honest misunderstanding, or revulsion, or something else, but I did remember how badly I missed it, how much I wanted someone to... "

"You should have said something," Frigga almost whispered. 

Loki nodded. "I should have. But I did not know what. And... I hoped that, if I did not make trouble about it, perhaps you would forgive me for... whatever I had done. I thought if I questioned you, it would make you angry, and then you would never-- "

Frigga's hands twisted convulsively, and Loki fell silent. For a rather long moment, no one spoke. 

And then Frigga rose to her feet, smooth and cool and polished as ever, if you did not look at her eyes, and smiled. 

"You will be wanting to return to Midgard. I must not keep you." She stepped forward, turned her head to offer Loki her cheek. He rose, brushed his lips against it, and then his mother let her fingers glide across the back of his hand. 

And she was gone. Loki watched the door close behind her, and sat down again.

"Um," George said, after a moment. "What was _that?"_

Mitchell looked genuinely concerned. "Do they... are there tranquilizers in Asgard? Because she seemed-- "

Loki shook his head. "I have no idea. I do not know what just happened."

"I think maybe I can make a guess," Annie offered. The three men turned to her. Annie said gently, "I think maybe she was hoping you'd convince her she didn't do anything wrong, and knew you weren't going to."

"And the games were necessary why?" George grumbled. 

"I don't think that was a game," Annie replied. "I just don't think she had the courage to ask Loki directly if she really failed him as badly as she's afraid she did. You notice those remarks she made about how Loki felt-- those were all things he could easily contradict. I think that's why she said them. You ignored the first one, and she was much more direct about the second. I think that was the best she could do, in terms of giving you permission to tell her where she had gone wrong."

"Then why have you here?" Loki demanded. "Why would she want me to say such things in front of you? Would she not feel safer, if it was just the two of us?"

Annie shrugged. "Maybe we were her backup, too. Maybe she knew you would let her get away with it, but she thought we wouldn't. Remember the first time we were here, when we thought Odin was going to punish you? And Mitchell talked back to him? Maybe she thought if we were here, you'd have the nerve to be honest with her. And if you still didn't, we would."

Loki stared at her. "There has to be an easier way to do this."

"Of course there should be. But sweetie, she's probably been messed up her whole life, too. And she's a lot older than you are." Still holding his hand, Annie rose to her feet, and George and Mitchell did, too. "Come on. Let's go see how Thor's getting along with Colonel Fury."

Loki let her pull him to his feet. Paused. Looked around at the others. "I... Thank you. All of you. I do not say it enough, but-- I love you all, very dearly."

"Mush," George grumbled, edging a little closer to Loki. Mitchell reached behind George and brushed his fingers across the back of Loki's head. 

"We know," Annie said, and smiled.

~oOo~

Somewhat to Loki's relief, by the time he and his friends rejoined Thor, Nick Fury was so bent upon getting back to Midgard that it was impossible for Thor to even think about anything else. The once and future director of SHIELD took a dim view of any attempts to thwart his aims-- and his definition of "thwart" seemed to include such matters as "time required to physically transport the group to the Bifrost." It transpired that the only reason Fury and Hill had not yet badgered Heimdall, as Loki had pictured, was because they did not know in what direction to go looking for him. 

Thor managed to cast one anxious look at his brother, a promise to speak more fully later, and that was all he had time for. Strangely, perhaps, Loki found himself relieved to find this the case. He was fully aware that it said something very unfortunate about his mental state, that he was eager to return to the war in Midgard as an alternative to continuing to deal with… whatever this was. 

He felt better, however, when he muttered something of that nature to George, and received the reply, 

"That's pretty much Christmas for half of Midgard, you know." Loki had lived on the realm for long enough to have some understanding of what George meant, and to his own surprise he felt the corners of his mouth quirk a little at the comment. 

They arrived at the Bifrost to find Odin already waiting for them, along with Tyr, a small contingent of the palace guard, and Sif and the Warriors Three. Thor's friends looked ready to travel, which should not have surprised Loki: of course, if Thor was about to enter into battle, his friends would join him. 

Loki glanced up just in time to see Tyr concealing an expression of surprise at the sight of him. It took him a moment to figure out what had caused it: the last time they had seen one another, Loki had been disguised as a Vanir servant, but his garb had been just that: a disguise. Loki supposed the old general had been present at the audience in which Odin had not disowned Loki after all, at which Loki had also been wearing Asgardian clothing (his own being so soaked with his own blood at the time that Eir the healer had refused to even consider giving it back to him.) 

Loki glanced down at himself now and considered just how outlandish he must look, in his jeans and hooded sweatshirt. And also, come to think of it, how unlike the icily polished Loki of old he must look, given how long it had been since he had been in possession of a comb, let alone a razor. The question was, did he look as though he had relaxed his standards, or lost his mind?

There were probably a number of productive and mature ways to deal with Tyr's reaction, but Loki was frankly too tired to think of any of them, so instead he caught the general's eye and mimed a kiss. Tyr immediately cut his eyes away. There was a look on his face that reminded Loki of the old days on the sparring grounds, when Tyr used to look as though, if he got his hands on Loki, he would not know whether to run him through with a spear or just give him a good spanking. 

The expression probably should not have served to cheer Loki up, but it did-- as did the hastily-suppressed look of mirth on the face of the soldier standing behind Tyr's right shoulder. Loki did not know the man's name, but he had been very supportive-- literally-- of Balder the night before, half-carrying the older soldier into the barracks, and he had a pleasant light baritone as he sang of the black velvet band. Loki winked at him and turned away before both of them burst into giggles and at least one of them got into trouble.

And then Odin spoke, and Loki hastily brought his mind back to the present, rearranging his features into solemnity as he did so. Addressing Thor, Odin said, 

"You will send word when you require our aid, and it shall be sent." Thor inclined his head. Odin next turned to Nick Fury: "This is not the first time Asgard has come to the aid of your realm. We will not fail you." Fury displayed a grasp of etiquette that should not have been unexpected, nodding to Odin with a respectful word of thanks. 

Loki was not expecting to exchange words with his father in this encounter, recognizing that, under the circumstances, Odin had little time for personal conversation and had to concentrate on Thor and Fury, the two commanders. For once, and despite the state he had been in earlier, Loki did not even feel resentful or passed over. Instead, he remembered the reception he had been given when Thor brought him here begging sanctuary, and Odin had chosen to behave as a father instead of a king. 

It was now time to behave as a king instead of a father, and Loki found himself accepting it. It crossed his mind that this, at least, was definitely progress. So he was considerably surprised when Odin stepped forward and addressed him in a rumbling undertone. 

"Your companions are not warriors," he stated baldly. Despite the obvious truth of the remark, Loki felt himself stiffen, but Odin went on, "If you wish it, they are welcome to remain here, until the danger has passed and you are able to return for them."

For about half a breath, Loki was unable to reply at all, the one thought in his mind that once again, he was seeing the father. 

And as a result he missed his opportunity, because there was a palpable sense of dismay beside him and Mitchell spoke up hastily, 

"Thank you, your Majesty, but we're going with him. I'm sure we'll be able to make ourselves useful, and even if we can't-- "

Loki found his voice. "You really should consider-- " he began.

"Shut it," George ordered. "Really." And then added hastily, "Thank you very much for the offer, sir, but no."

"Definitely no," Annie added quickly. "It's our realm, after all, and-- No."

Odin looked momentarily amused, and then nodded soberly. "Of course."

"Thank you, though," Loki said. "Father. Thank you." 

Odin smiled slightly, and nodded again, and Heimdall activated the Bifrost.


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which superheroes make an effort to play nicely together, we expand on one of George's gifts, and anything is better than being in Asgard.

They landed hard on an expansive lawn, and for a moment Loki was at a loss to know where they were. He cast a quick look around to ensure everyone was together-- it was not that he did not trust Heimdall's expertise, of course, just that taking the headcount was reassuring to him. Annie was right beside him-- unsurprising, since he was holding her hand-- and George and Mitchell completed the grouping behind them. Thor and his four friends stood nearby, and next to them Maria Hill, looking extremely startled. Loki supposed this was only natural, for someone with so little experience in traveling by Bifrost. 

Fury, on the other hand, looked like a man for whom the Bifrost was merely another form of public transit. Loki suspected he had himself been more bewildered after his first ride on a city bus in Bristol-- although in his own defense, that had occurred only a few days after his tumble from the Bifrost, and he had not been himself at the time. 

Loki suspected it would take a great deal more than a plunge through space and dimensions to fluster Nick Fury. 

Loki, who since his own fall to Midgard had discovered in himself an unexpected propensity to become quite flustered, was working hard to at least appear calm as he tried to identify the great stone house, a sprawling old building with gables and diamond-paned windows, before them.

And then, to his immeasurable relief, the door opened, and out came Tony, Steve, and Pepper. Loki looked at the house again and realized they were back in Scotland, at the original hideout. Loki could not decide whether he was happier to be reunited with the rest of the Avengers, or simply to know he was finally back in Great Britain. 

"Hey! Welcome back!" Tony called cheerfully, adding cheekily, "Nick! Nice to see you again!" Fury gave Tony a look that suggested he would be wise to go back into the house and put on his Iron Man suit. And probably never take it off again, at least not in Fury's presence. Tony strategically permitted Steve-- and also Pepper-- to step in front of him while he waved the rest of the group into the house. "We'd have thrown a welcome-back party, with drinks, but we're a little pressed for time."

"That is all right," Thor replied. "My brother does not require alcohol at the moment. Indeed, he will in all likelihood not need any more for another century at least." 

"I'm sure there's a story behind that, but we'll have to hear it later," Tony said.

"More like a song, really," Thor murmured, ushering Loki and his friends through the door before him. "With an appealing chorus that encourages everyone present to sing along."

"Keep it up," Loki advised in an undertone, "and I will perhaps find a spell that causes _your_ every utterance to come out in the form of a song. And not an enjoyable one, such as might be heard in a tavern. There is a form of theatre on this realm which seems to involve large people screaming musically at one another. It is _unbelievably_ annoying. Really, I have no idea why it has not yet become popular with the court of Asgard."

Thor was snickering behind him when Loki passed through the door into the great entry hall. The moment they were inside the house, however, Thor wrapped one arm around Loki's torso, cast an apologetic glance at his friends, and quite literally dragged him into the study to the right of the door. 

_"What?"_ Loki demanded, looking in surprise at Thor's anxious face. "Thor?"

"How are you?" Thor asked. Loki blinked at him in confusion, and Thor placed his hand on Loki's shoulder and shook it gently. "Brother?"

Loki opened his mouth to protest that he was fine, perfect, never better, and instead heard himself say, "Never mind me, how is Mother?" 

"Mother?"

"Yes. She was... more than peculiar, when I spoke to her just now." He remembered Annie's diagnosis of the situation and decided to keep it to himself for the moment. "Has she been like that for long?"

Thor's shoulders sagged. "She has been rather strange since... the first time you disappeared. She was, of course, heartbroken at your loss, but there is something else, something that has persisted even since your return. She will not speak of it, but something is wrong." 

Loki rubbed his temples. "I think we had best leave this to think about at another time." He looked up at his brother and managed a smile. "In answer to your question, I am fine. Considerably better now that I am back in Midgard-- which should shame me to confess, but-- "

"It is hardly surprising," Thor admitted, looked at him narrowly for a moment, and then nodded, removing his hand from Loki's shoulder after a final squeeze. "Very well. We will speak of this again, but perhaps not now." 

"Perhaps not," Loki agreed. On impulse, however, he reached up and laid his hand briefly on the side of Thor's face, a gesture more natural to Thor than to himself, then said, "We should join the others." 

Pepper was waiting to shepherd them to wherever the rest of the group had gone when they emerged from the study. She showed no curiosity at all about what the brothers had been discussing. Loki managed to smile at her. She smiled back, perfectly pleasantly, and then turned to lead them down the hall.

The rest of the group had gathered in a large room furnished with comfortable chairs and couches, one corner dominated by a large television. Loki was visited with a sense of familiarity, an awareness he had been here before, but no specific memories came to him. All the same, the last of the anxiety he had brought with him from Asgard, and much of the weight around his heart, fled as he walked into the room. There was something about this room that made him feel... safe.

All of the available seats being occupied, Loki went over to the big leather couch and settled himself cross-legged on the floor in front of it, next to George's feet and leaning back against the arm where Annie was perched. Thus situated, Loki had a look around at the rest of the occupants of the room. 

Thor's friends were gathered in a corner of the room, at some distance from the couch where Loki's friends sat. It was, he had to admit, more than likely his own friends, rather than Thor's, were responsible for that positioning. Or perhaps they had simply chosen their seats with an eye toward putting themselves near Steve, who occupied the other end of this couch. 

The Avengers were assembled, all of them, and Clint, Bruce and Natasha looked rather uncomfortable. This might have been due to the presence of a number of others, strangers to Loki. 

Strangers, that is, in the sense that he had not yet met them in person. The enormous being who appeared to be composed of rock, as well as the two other men and the woman who were his companions, were quite familiar to Loki from action figures possessed by children at the school. Loki knew before the introductions that the rock-like being was known as the Thing, while his two male comrades were the Human Torch and Mr. Fantastic, and the last was the Invisible Woman-- who, apparently, was not always invisible.

Collectively, they were known as the Fantastic Four, which struck Loki as rather hubristic, but he deemed it wisest to keep that thought to himself. The Human Torch bore an unsettling resemblance to a younger, brasher, and much more impatient Steve Rogers-- something about the cast of his features. Loki glanced up at Steve and was reassured that Captain America was indeed here, and seemed to be his temperate self. 

Seated quite near the Fantastic Four, with Tony on his other side, was Tony's friend Lt. Col. Rhodes, who greeted Loki with a friendly smile. Loki smiled back, then his gaze went on to the two elderly men sitting together at the far end of the room. One, clad in black, slouched in an armchair with the arrogance of a warrior-king on a throne, while the other sat very upright in a wheeled chair. Catching Loki's eye, the second man nodded to him. 

"I am Professor Charles Xavier," he introduced himself, his tone pleasant, almost warm. 

"I am pleased to meet you," Loki replied, sitting up a little straighter. "Loki Odinson. Thor's brother," he added, conscious of anxiety under the examination of the two older men, and perhaps with a wish to justify his presence here. 

Xavier smiled. "Otherwise known on this realm as the God of Mischief," he remarked. 

Loki felt his face growing warm. "Actually, I am not, strictly speaking, a god at all," he replied. 

"Indeed? The stories about you are... fascinating," Xavier replied, in a tone Loki thought might indicate he was teasing. Loki did not especially like to be teased by anyone he did not know. And, admittedly, by a very limited number of those he did.

"All made up, I am afraid," he replied stiffly. "You know how the people of this realm enjoy works of fiction." Xavier nodded pleasantly, his eyes very sharp. 

A moment later, Loki was aware of something, a feeling, as though a stranger had stolen into his mind, was walking about with its hands clasped behind its back, thoughtfully regarding Loki's innermost workings. 

Loki's reaction was instinctive and uncompromising: his head jerked back, and then he performed the magical equivalent of taking the intruder by the scruff of the neck, twisting its arm behind its back, and propelling it firmly out of the house. With a sensation rather like a door slamming shut, Loki barricaded his mind from any further intrusion. 

Professor Xavier's own head twitched, and the feeling of contact with another consciousness disappeared, leaving Loki breathing rapidly and glaring at the older man with intense distrust. 

The second elderly man glanced at Xavier and said crossly, "Leave the boy alone, Charles. It's indecent when you do that to the unsuspecting. Besides, if _they're_ willing to trust a rogue mutant, _you_ can damn well take it on faith the God of Mischief is all right." His tone caused Loki to suddenly wonder whether the two old men might be brothers. He lost that train of thought when the black-clad man turned to him and said, "I am known as Magneto, and I can generally be found on the side opposite this lot. I was under the impression, from the stories, that might be a more natural condition for you as well."

Loki resisted the impulse to wrap his arms defensively around himself. "As I say, the stories are merely that. Stories. Fiction." He forbore to add his usual disclaimer regarding the drinking habits of the ancient Vikings, and he resolutely quelled the urge to glance at the Warriors Three to see how they were reacting to all this. 

"It's true, though," said the Human Torch. "You don't have a reputation as the type of guy who'd care very much whether someone took over the world. More the kind who might help for the hell of it, and then see what he could get out of it." Catching the glances of his friends, the young man protested, "Hey, I can read."

Over by the Warriors and Sif, Thor made a noise that suggested thunder a long way off. However, he let Loki speak for himself.

"Clearly you have the advantage of me," Loki replied stiffly. "Since I have not yet read all of the stories of which you speak." 

The Human Torch shrugged and smiled, not quite pleasantly. "I'm sure you've got your own reasons for helping us."

Now everyone was looking at him, and his sense of being safe in this room had evaporated. Loki kept his eyes on the Human Torch, who no longer resembled Steve and who, along with Professor Xavier, he was beginning to hate, and replied, "This matter of 'taking over the world.' That would, I assume, include Bristol?" He looked around, got an amused-looking nod from Magneto, and said, "Well, then, there you have my reason. I prefer my home unsubjugated, thank you. I have the impression that city, and indeed the whole of the United Kingdom, would be rendered very irritable, not to mention quite stubborn, by any such effort. It would be unpleasant for everyone. Certainly that is the lesson we learn from history."

"'The lesson we learn from history'?" Professor Xavier repeated, tone questioning. 

"Indeed," Loki replied seriously. "Surely you have heard of the Blitz?"

Professor Xavier looked at Loki for a moment in what appeared to be genuine disbelief-- and then he threw his head back and laughed. 

"Yes, I suppose you could call that an occasion when the nation became... stubborn and irritable... at the notion of subjugation."

"All right," Nick Fury spoke up suddenly. "I assume this is just more of whatever feeling out and sniffing around you've all been doing since you got here, but we're done now. If any of you want to appoint your own magical consultant, you can go right ahead, but Loki's ours. Interrogation over."

Loki carefully did not look at Fury, and hoped his relief and gratitude was not as visible as it felt. It occurred to him that "magical consultant" was a term Tony had also used with reference to him, which indicated he had been the object of some degree of discussion since his first adventure with the Avengers-- and that the tone of that discussion had been mostly approving. 

The thought was reassuring, as was a quick glance in the direction of Pepper and Natasha-- as he caught their eye, both women pulled faces indicating impatience and annoyance with both the Human Torch and Professor X. It crossed his mind to wonder whether any of the newcomers had offered to condescend to the Black Widow, but since no one appeared to be missing his entrails, Loki concluded that could not have happened. 

Steve now took control of the briefing. 

"Okay. We don't have a lot of time, so let's get down to business. According to the intelligence Loki gathered for us, the five SHIELD headquarters initially marked for attack were New York, London, Moscow, Brasilia, and Tokyo. That would make one each in North and South America, one in Asia, and two in Europe. It's quite likely the Red Skull and his allies have figured out something is up, so they might have made a change of targets, but this is all we have to go on for now."

"Are there any targets in that list we can count on them attacking?" the not-at-the-moment Invisible Woman spoke up. 

Before Steve could answer, George did:

"SHIELD is an American agency, so they'll pretty much have to hit one in the United States to try and pin the response in that country. Is there a central HQ?"

"That's New York," Fury said. 

"Okay," George nodded. "For symbolic reasons, I can't see the Red Skull changing that target. The other two he'll definitely want, also for symbolic reasons, will be London and Moscow. He'll _have_ to go after those."

" _Have_ to?" the Thing said skeptically. "What do you mean, _have_ to?" 

The Thing was not alone in his skepticism: the rest of the Fantastic Four, in addition to Thor's friends (who, in fairness, probably had no idea what George was talking about) looked at George with expressions of equal doubt. Loki twisted his head to see how his friend was taking this.

George sighed, removed his spectacles, and wiped them with the tail of his shirt. Far from appearing intimidated by the lack of belief in the others' expressions, he seemed impatient with their stupidity. 

"Steve told you what code names the Red Skull's assigned to the targets?" The Thing nodded, looking suddenly as unsure of himself as a being made of rock could probably look. Mr. Fantastic leaned forward a little, his expression thoughtful. George replaced his spectacles and skewered the Thing with a gimlet eye, rather like a schoolmaster confronting a pupil who had failed to prepare for a lesson. "The beaches at Normandy? And he's calling the whole thing Operation _Overlord?_ The code name of the Allied invasion of Europe? He's trying to take over the world, sure, but he's also re-fighting the Second World War, in a mocking kind of way, and planning on a better outcome for his side. Trust me, he _wants_ London and Moscow."

"Well done," murmured Professor X, and Loki forgave him everything. 

"That certainly sounds like the Red Skull I knew," Steve agreed. "And if we move fast, we may still be able to hit those targets before the Red Skull does, and force him to concentrate his efforts on repelling us."

"It's worth a try," shrugged Mr. Fantastic, which Loki suspected was as near a ringing endorsement as the Avengers could expect from their fellow superheroes. These creatures seemed as little inclined toward cooperation as their villainous counterparts, which was hardly reassuring. Only the two elderly mutants, with their air of long acquaintance, seemed to have any intention of working together. Loki, who followed the news, knew quite well that Magneto was to all intents and purposes a supervillain and, despite his annoying tricks, Professor X was a hero. And yet they seemed much more able than the younger heroes to put aside their differences. Brothers, surely, Loki thought as he looked at the two elderly creatures. At the very least, acquaintances-- perhaps friends?-- of very long standing. 

"The question is, how do we divide our resources?" Mr. Fantastic spoke up. 

"London is my responsibility," Loki said immediately. Everyone looked at him again and this time he looked back, more determined than defiant. "The United Kingdom has been very good to me since my exile," he insisted, conveniently ignoring the fact he had neither requested nor been granted sanctuary here, he had simply taken it. That, he felt, was neither here nor there in terms of his obligations in return.

Given the tenor of the previous conversation, Loki would have expected near bloodshed over the assignment of roles. To his surprise, the various heroes bowed to the urgency of the situation with only a little unhelpful shouting, and fairly quickly worked out a plan. Thor and his companions, including Loki and his friends, were indeed assigned to London. The Avengers and Rhodes took New York, while the mutants had Moscow and the Fantastic Four, with a promise of further mutants in reserve, were to respond to whatever attack the Red Skull attempted to use to divert attention from the main areas of interest. 

"One problem," Mr. Fantastic said. "How are we going to _know_ when the Red Skull hits another SHIELD target? We'd need to get that information pretty damn fast."

The Avengers looked at Tony, who shrugged. "One of my lesser-known talents is snooping."

"'Lesser-known'?" Clint snickered. 

Tony ignored him. "It was surprisingly easy to patch into internal communications-- well, for someone of my talents." Loki waited, but none of the Fantastic Four gave in to the natural urge to snap at Tony to get on with it. Instead, Steve sighed and took over for him. 

"Agent Coulson, of SHIELD, is in the security control room here, monitoring several channels' worth of SHIELD communications. He'll let us know if an emergency pops up anywhere."

"Are all of these internal communications in English, or is your Agent Coulson a polyglot?" Professor X inquired. 

"The official language of communication for SHIELD is English, but you're correct, the local staff at each location tends to speak the local language among themselves," Tony admitted. "Those feeds are passing through translation software."

"And how is that working?" Professor X wanted to know. "Developing such software is a tricky thing, especially when dealing with colloquial conversation."

"It's not perfect," Tony said, "but it's what we've got."

"Um," George said, at the same moment his housemates began to make noises.

"Yes?" Tony prompted. 

"Which languages are you translating?" George wanted to know. 

Tony shrugged. "German, Croatian, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese-- why?"

George wriggled. "It's just that I speak those. Well, I'm not completely fluent in Japanese just yet, but-- "

Tony sat forward in his chair. "You _speak_ them? _All_ of them?"

George squirmed. "It's a bit of a talent I have, is all. Languages, I mean." 

Tony beamed. "Of course. A bit of a talent. That's great. Coulson will be thrilled. He's upstairs in the attic right now, pretending not to curse at me. He'll be delighted to see you. We'll make sure you have tea. Lots of tea. It'll be just like Bletchley Park, only smaller and without an ENIGMA machine."

George blinked, apparently not able to hear quite as fast as Tony could talk, and then he nodded. 

"Sure. Of course. Glad to help," he said, and Loki smothered a sigh of relief. He would never have said as much to George, but he really had regretted his friend's refusing the offer of sanctuary in Asgard. Obviously, werewolves were much tougher than they appeared, but outside the full moon George's gifts were nearly all of the mind, and as soon as he had a minute, Loki had intended to be very worried about him. Leaving him to organize communications with Agent Coulson was the best option Loki could imagine. 

The meeting broke up so that everyone could depart for their assignments-- with the exceptions of George and the Fantastic Four, who would await developments in the lodge. Loki pulled his feet out of the way of Professor X's wheeled chair. Then, as he stood, he found himself cornered by Clint and Natasha. 

"What did you do to him?" Natasha demanded, a wicked glint in her eye. 

"To who?" Loki countered, uncertain for a moment what she was talking about. 

Natasha drew closer. "Professor X. He was obviously trying to read your mind, which is his thing, which is creepy as all hell," she explained in an undertone. "I don't care if he's a good guy. How did you get rid of him?"

Loki shrugged. "Nothing very refined, I fear. I ejected him and.. more or less locked the door upon him. And yourselves?"

"Sweet," Clint snickered. "He hasn't bothered snooping in my brain for a while. The first couple of times he tried it, I just thought filthy thoughts until he either got bored, or felt like a dirty old man, and went away."

"That's better than my idea," Natasha congratulated him. 

"Which was?" Clint prompted. 

"I sang the theme song to _Gilligan's Island_ over and over inside my head," Natasha replied viciously. "I hope he has an earworm the size of an anaconda right now."

Loki raised his eyebrows. "Hmm. I think I like that better than my alternative. I wonder whether the song about the black velvet band would also be suitable for such a purpose?" 

Clint winced. "I bet I'll be able to tell you in half an hour, now you've made me think of it. Thanks a lot."

Loki was not sure whether to apologize or not, but Tony saved him from the need to make a decision by walking over and grabbing him by the hood of his sweatshirt. 

"Walk with me," he commanded. Owing to the difference in their heights, Loki found himself bent over sideways, and if it had been anyone but Tony-- well, anyone aside from a short list of people, one of whom was Tony-- he might have been seriously annoyed. 

As it was, Loki sighed exaggeratedly and asked, "What?"

"We have a problem, Loki," Tony announced. Had he not been practically hanging from Loki's neck, the announcement might have been a cause for anxiety-- _now what have I done?_ \-- but the circumstances made it difficult for even Loki to feel terribly threatened. 

"Oh really? And what is-- let go of me," he commanded belatedly, attempting to pry Tony's fingers loose. Tony outside the Iron Man suit was not especially strong even for a mortal, but he held on tenaciously enough that the only way for Loki to free himself would have been to hurt him. Which left Loki bent over sideways, scowling.

"It's about your costume," Tony explained. Loki arched an eyebrow, and Tony explained, "You can't run around fighting evil in jeans and a hoodie. It lowers the tone."

"I do not see what is wrong with it," Loki defended himself. "On the television, there are many programs featuring detectives who have gone 'undercover' to fight evil, and they are frequently garbed so as to blend in with regular mortals. And indeed, in this realm there are legends of an archer, who wore a hood-- "

Tony shook him by the sweatshirt. "Yeah, but they're not hanging out with superheroes. Although I suppose if you look at it a certain way, Robin Hood was kind of a superhero himself-- Never mind. Among other things, it screws up your ability to maintain a secret identity, if you just look like yourself all the time." Loki sent his second eyebrow up to join the first, and Tony shrugged. "Granted, I have a superhero costume and my identity is a matter of public record, but still. It's the principle of the thing." His point made, Tony released Loki, who straightened up and gave him a look that was suspicious more for effect than out of any real misgiving as to Tony's intentions. 

"Very well. You request that I find myself some sort of costume, is that correct?" 

"Ah. Well. As it happens," Tony said smugly, "JARVIS kind of has that covered."

Loki realized he had heard that name before. He narrowed his eyes. "And who is Jarvis?"

"My house," Tony replied, as though that explained everything. Then he relented: "Actually, the artificial intelligence system that runs my house. And also builds the Iron Man suits. A little thing like a costume for a magical consultant? No problem." He grabbed Loki again, this time by the arm, and tugged him toward the staircase. Resistance was clearly futile, and besides, Loki was by now intensely curious. 

Tony propelled Loki up the stairs and down the hall, pulled him to a halt before a closed door, and commanded, "Shut your eyes." 

"You are being ridiculous," Loki protested. 

"I don't care. Shut your eyes." 

Loki heaved an exaggerated sigh, cast a martyred glance at his brother and his friends, who had naturally followed and who looked just as curious as Loki felt, and obeyed. He heard the door open, and then Tony steered him into the room-- not quite carefully enough, because Loki banged his shoulder into the doorframe and let out an exaggerated yelp of anguish. 

"Don't be a baby," Tony ordered unsympathetically, turned him carefully, adjusted his angle twice, paused, made another tiny adjustment that made Loki lose patience and jab at him with his elbow, and finally said, "Okay, you can open your eyes." 

Loki did. 

"Oh," was all he managed. 

He was in one of the guest rooms, and spread out on the bed before him was... a costume. Loki took a step closer, hands clasped behind his back as though he was not supposed to touch. 

The costume consisted of a great deal of distressed-looking leather, of a colour somewhere between thunder- gray and black, accented by green wool cloth and what appeared to be bronze armour. And rivets. And various other little grace notes that made the clothing look less like armour and more like artwork. 

Tony did not appear to be disappointed with the reaction-- possibly Loki's face was more expressive than his utterance. Looking intensely pleased with himself, he said, 

"Why don't you try it on? Actually, why don't you shower and shave first, because frankly it's getting hard to tell you apart from Mitchell and scruffy is a much better look on him, and _then_ try it on. And hurry up, because JARVIS had to work from measurements he created using security camera footage, and Pepper is very impatient to see whether it fits."

"Pepper, of course," Loki agreed. Tony winked, and let himself out of the room. Left to his own devices, Loki took a closer look at the costume, brushed his fingertips across the bronze plate that crossed the breast, and then went on to the bathroom. 

About half an hour later there was a thump on the door. A friendly sort of thump, though impatient, Loki concluded, and was not surprised when Thor responded to his call to enter. 

"Yes?" 

"Tony sent me to find out whether something had eaten you," Thor explained, his expression perfectly serious. Then, with a slight quirk at the corners of his mouth, he went on, "Almost, I perceive."

"I would appreciate some help, if you are offering," Loki admitted, from his situation half-engulfed in leather and wool. "It appears I have lost the skill of wearing really complicated clothing. Also, I am more than grateful I have not been assigned to travel to Brazil in this attire."

"It does look rather heavy," Thor agreed. 

"Heavy? It weighs as much as a dog of reasonable size. I am only grateful Tony did not think to include a helmet," Loki replied, struggling to right himself as he fought with the trousers.

Thor smirked. "He mentioned that there should be a box-- there, by the window." 

Loki twisted around to look. It was a large box. More than capacious enough to accommodate horns. "Oh." 

Thor's smirk turned into a genuine smile. "May I offer you my assistance?"

"I wish you would," Loki muttered. 

Ten minutes later, Thor helped Loki adjust the extremely broad leather shoulders of the coat--really, it was just as well the doorways were not narrow-- and remarked, 

"I would like to know what Tony-- and perhaps Pepper-- used as inspiration for this garb. Surely they do not think this is what you wore in Asgard?"

"I doubt very much that was a consideration," Loki replied. "Or a constraint upon Tony's imagination." 

Thor tilted his head on one side. "You do not look like a prince, exactly..."

Loki glanced in the mirror over the chest of drawers. "No. I feel more like a pirate. If Asgard had pirates. All I need is a parrot to sit upon my shoulder and squawk 'pieces of eight!'" At the expression on Thor's face, Loki explained, "There is a book about an island of treasure. We would both have enjoyed it, when we were children. If I ever get home I will find a copy for you to read." 

Thor's face changed. "Yes. Home." 

Loki winced. "I apologize. I did not mean..."

"Yes, you did," Thor corrected, patting and fussing at the leather coat as though it might have wrinkles that required smoothing. "It is quite all right. Now that you mention it, brother, I find it quite strange to see you in anything other than Midgardian attire. I thought the same thing when you were dressed as a Vanir. You look... more at home, somehow, in your Midgardian clothes." Thor hesitated, and then added, "Less... anxious… than I remember."

"Indeed," Loki muttered, looking at the unfamiliar reflection in the mirror. It appeared to him rather as though someone had taken his head and pasted it onto the body of another. 

With that said, however, Tony's make-believe Asgardian attire did not produce the kind of knots in his stomach that might have accompanied an effort to wear anything he found in his old rooms. This was indeed a costume: painstakingly imagined, beautifully made, and affectionately offered. Loki brushed a hand over the intricately carved bronze vambrace that protected his left forearm, looked in the mirror again, and remarked,

"Well, I certainly look more like someone who should be associating with superheroes. Or battling them, as the case may be." Thor punched him very lightly in the shoulder-- Loki forbore from admitting he could not feel it, since he suspected this costume would cushion him from any blow up to the point at which bones would be broken, and he had as little desire as ever to be knocked over. "Shall we show the others?"

"Do not forget your helmet," Thor reminded him, treacherously. 

"Yes, thank you, brother," Loki snarled half-heartedly. It was not the same helmet, he reminded himself. There was no need for superstitious anxiety.

And indeed, when he finally descended the staircase, the helmet under one arm and Thor following along behind, the reaction from his friends took any lingering uneasiness away. 

"That's more like it," Tony said approvingly, an arm around Pepper who also looked pleased with the effect. "How's the helmet?"

"Heavy," Loki replied succinctly. 

"Let's see," Mitchell urged. Loki made a face at him and Mitchell made one back. Under the combined weight of all three housemates' insistent expressions (to say nothing of Tony's and Pepper's, and Thor's eyes on the back of his head) Loki sighed, pushed his damp hair back with one hand, and settled the helmet on his head with the other. 

_"Nice,"_ George exclaimed, his expression mirroring the obvious approval on Annie and Mitchell's faces. 

"I have no idea what Tony thinks I need to compensate for," Loki muttered, less grumpily than his tone indicated, "but these horns are a great deal larger than the ones on my old helmet."

"Well, you're older now than you were then," Mitchell pointed out. "They'd have grown. That's how it works."

"What kind of a creature are those based on?" Annie asked, stepping closer and tilting her head back to look. 

"An ibex, I'd say," George offered. At the questioning expressions on the faces of his housemates, George clarified, "It's a kind of mountain goat. Lives in the Alps, I think."

"You do know the oddest bits of information," Loki congratulated him. 

"Yes, well, that's what happens when you spend half your childhood in the library, hiding from bigger kids," George said. 

"Is it, now?" Loki countered, arching an eyebrow. "I would not know about that." George grimaced at him and returned to the matter of the helmet. 

"I must say, though, it's perfect. Since the one thing you desperately need is to be _taller,_ " he remarked, craning his neck. 

"Well, you must admit, it will render me easier to find in a crowd," Loki pointed out. 

"Dead handy, really," Mitchell agreed. "I can see us at a New Year's party: 'Okay, everyone, at twelve-thirty we'll meet under Loki's helmet and all go home.'"

Annie snickered. "You've never left a New Year's party at twelve-thirty in your _life._ "

"Also, it will be excellent for my posture," Loki noted. "Since any effort to lean forward or back would have most unfortunate consequences, probably involving my falling over or having to run after my head in order to regain my balance." 

"I can see that," Annie agreed. "It's very handsome, though." She met Loki's eye and smiled at the flustered expression he found himself fighting down. It was unlikely anyone would believe his suddenly flushed complexion had anything to do with the heat of the costume. 

"So," Tony said hopefully, "is it okay?"

Loki smiled at him. "More than okay. Thank you, Tony. I feel much more heroic already." 

"That really is pretty awesome," the Human Torch spoke up, from the other side of the entryway. "It's much easier to believe you're a god when you're dressed like that."

"But I am not a god," Loki explained patiently. "I am a custodian." 

"Trust me, you'll get more action with the god line," the Human Torch assured him. Loki assumed an expression of blank innocence, as though he had no idea what the other man was talking about and intended to ask him many embarrassing questions. The Human Torch mumbled something and fled back down the hall, leaving Loki and his friends giggling behind him. 

There was a momentary awkward pause. 

"Well, there you are: booted, suited, and ready for action," George finally said, a touch wistfully. "I'll see you later." Pause. "Be careful, all of you."

"Right," Mitchell agreed, embraced him, and then stood aside so that Annie and Loki could take their turns. A moment later, Agent Coulson appeared at the head of the staircase.

"I understand you're working with me, George?" he asked. "Oh, hey, Loki. Nice outfit," he added casually, before returning his attention to George. 

"Right," George agreed, patted Mitchell on the shoulder once again, and went up to join Coulson. On the ground floor, Loki, Annie and Mitchell watched until he disappeared from their view, then turned to Thor. 

"It appears to be time to go," Loki said, not even trying to conceal the anxiety he suddenly felt, knowing Annie and Mitchell, at least, shared it.

Thor nodded, his matter-of-fact comportment almost reassuring. "Our transportation awaits."

Loki and the others followed him out of the lodge.


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings for:** Undoubted OOC-ness by various mutants, which I handwave away as a consequence of the unusualness of the situation. I do apologize, but these are pretty much cameos and this story is complicated enough already!

Really, Storm thought, someone should have been recording this meeting, or at least taking notes. It should have been preserved for posterity, because it was without doubt the only occasion when Storm, Jean Grey, and Mystique were all united in one accord.

"We're going to work _together?_ " Storm asked, fighting to keep her face impassive and her voice level. Very carefully, she did not look at anyone except Xavier, but she was conscious, in the tight passenger compartment of the X-Jet, of Jean's brown eyes and Mystique's yellow ones on her, for once united in a common emotion: disbelief. She assumed Cyclops, in the cockpit, was feeling the same thing.

"Indeed," Xavier replied calmly. "It is not unprecedented, Storm, in the face of a common enemy."

Storm did not point out that the precedents of which Xavier spoke had happened long before she or Jean had been born. Magneto already looked too amused, damn him, and had done so since he walked out of that lodge behind the Professor and, with the gardener who was suddenly revealed as Mystique, got into the X-Jet. 

Xavier also looked amused, but there was an undertone to it, one Storm recognized, that hinted at secret pleasure in once again working with Magneto as an ally, of being on the same side. It made something in her chest hurt, to realize that, after all these years of antagonism, there were some bonds that simply could not be broken. 

And then she cut her eyes sideways and surprised the same look on Magneto's face, of buried pleasure and affection. She was not stupid enough to think that made Magneto trustworthy, she knew that if it suited him or his cause he would still stab Xavier in the back so deep they'd never find the point of the knife, but it was a reminder that _something_ was still there. It was hard to say whether she found that more reassuring or heartbreaking. 

And then she abandoned the train of thought, because Mystique, whose relationship with Xavier went back even farther than Magneto's, spoke up, addressing Magneto:

"Let me just get this clear in my mind: we're throwing in our lot with the collaborators, at the request of the genetically-engineered pseudo-mutant the _sapiens_ love so much? How exactly did that happen?" Xavier opened his mouth and Mystique gestured sharply for him to be silent. "Magneto?"

Magneto shrugged elegantly. "Captain America made a fairly persuasive argument, that Hydra would hardly be content to subjugate the humans and leave us unmolested. Having a certain amount of... experience... with the intelligence behind agencies like Hydra, I am inclined to agree with him." 

Mystique frankly sneered. "And you did not consider the possibility of allowing this Hydra to do our work for us, with the _sapiens_ and the 'superheroes,' and then take the world away from them afterward?"

Magneto's tolerant expression cooled several degrees. "My dear, you greatly underestimate the power of both Hydra and its allies. It is not worth the risk to us, to permit them to gain the upper hand and then gamble we can wrest control from them again."

"It isn't like you, to show such little confidence," Mystique argued.

Magneto smiled coldly. "But it is entirely like me, to be pragmatic. We have temporary common cause with both the _sapiens_ and Charles's group, and therefore a truce will remain in place until such time as the threat has passed. Is that clear?"

Mystique held the icy blue gaze for a long moment, and then made a gesture that seemed to indicate her acquiescence, if not agreement. Magneto turned back to Xavier.

"Charles, perhaps you could bring the others up to date on developments."

Xavier nodded, smiled at Mystique, and turned to the others. "Our share of the job is to capture and hold the SHIELD building in Moscow. Hydra's allies, the Dire Wraiths, have already infiltrated SHIELD, and we must therefore use caution: we cannot trust that any SHIELD operative we meet is not a Wraith in disguise, but at the same time we must also be careful not to harm any human agents."

Mystique made a noise of contempt, not quite loud enough for either Xavier or Magneto to feel the need to respond. Imperturbably, Xavier continued, 

"Our efforts will be concentrated in Moscow, while the others focus on the offices in New York and London. Jean, you have conducted tests on the mobile version of Cerebro?"

"Yes," Jean replied, looking relieved that the discussion had turned to practicalities. "It appears the device can identify the presence of magic, so we'll be able to use it to identify disguised Wraiths. That means, however, that all of us will have to be in direct contact with either the Professor or myself, whoever is connected to Cerebro."

Magneto, who objected to Xavier's mental incursions even more than Loki did, raised an eyebrow. "Indeed?" 

"Yes," Jean replied, unapologetically. "Unless you have the ability to identify a magical shapeshifter yourself, it's the only way."

"And how are the other two groups dealing with this problem?" Mystique asked, suspicion bristling in her tone.

"The Avengers are accompanied by Clea Strange, who is herself a sorceress," Xavier explained. "Presumably she has some abilities in the area of identification of fellow magical creatures."

"And the God of Thunder?" Mystique pressed, sarcasm now achieving dominance.

Magneto spoke. "According to Captain America, the brother-- who insists he is not in fact a god, so given his cover on this planet perhaps we should refer to him as the Custodian of Mischief-- is known to have specific talents in that regard."

"Does he?" Storm spoke up, mostly to be saying something again. 

Magneto smiled suddenly. "Yes. Apparently, he can smell magic. For all of our sakes, let us hope the boy does not develop a cold in his head." 

~oOo~

The mutants left first, flying away in the cloaked X-Jet, which left Loki's group sitting in the helicopter for a few minutes waiting for Tony's pilot to take off. That turned out to be just as well, because about a minute after everyone had strapped themselves into their seats, Tony came running out of the lodge carrying something black.

"Sorry, I nearly forgot," he said, as he leaned in the door of the helicopter. "Mitchell-- this is for you." He tossed the black object. Mitchell caught it, spread it out on his lap. Loki leaned forward to see. It was some sort of heavy vest.

"Bulletproof?" Mitchell asked. 

"And stakeproof, I hope," Tony replied. "Just in case someone's seen _Dracula_. Good luck, guys." He withdrew and slammed the door.

"Seriously, for a guy so notoriously self-centred, Tony has the most amazing tendency to _think_ of things," Mitchell commented, as he shed his black leather jacket and his top layer of shirts to put on the vest. 

"I suspect Tony is a bit of a shapeshifter, himself," Loki agreed, as Mitchell fastened the vest and resumed his jacket. He looked bulkier than was normal and could not do up the front zipper of his jacket, but it was deeply reassuring to think of Mitchell having some protection from any human agents of SHIELD who might recognize his kind and misunderstand his intentions.

The helicopter lifted off, and Fandral clutched at his seat, apparently not trusting the mortal conveyance. 

"I do not understand why we could not simply ask Heimdall to transport us to wherever we are bound," he complained. "It would certainly be faster."

"Yes, and a great deal more conspicuous," Loki replied. "We are disguised as an air ambulance, which is a common enough sight in major cities. We will appear to the casual observer, and with luck to the inhabitants of the SHIELD building, as a normal part of the landscape." 

Fandral nodded grimly and chose not to argue. Loki smiled unkindly at him.

"Cheer up, Fandral, these vessels almost never crash."

"Be ni-ice," Annie sang under her breath, an encouraging change from her own prior resentment of Thor's friends. Loki tightened his arms around her-- the helicopter was crowded, and Annie naturally did not require a safety harness, and somehow this had resulted in her sitting in Loki's lap. Loki had no objection to this arrangement.

Volstagg looked just as uneasy as Fandral, although he did not seem concerned about their safety in the helicopter. He kept casting glances at Loki as though he wished to say something, but did not quite have the courage. Loki was strongly tempted to ask what was the matter, but on second thoughts decided the big warrior might prefer privacy, when he aired whatever was preying on his mind. 

And anyway, since it was clear that whatever Volstagg was worrying about had something to do with himself, Loki was not at all sure he wanted to know what it was in the first place. But it was certainly progress that Loki now believed Volstagg _had_ a mind for something to prey upon.

Thor, either oblivious to any discomfort amongst his troops or unwilling to indulge it, leaned forward, pulling a sheaf of paper from his armour. "Tony has given me a set of plans for the building. I confess I find them difficult to read, but perhaps together we can interpret them and devise a plan." 

Mitchell and Annie, as Midgardians, had at least a little familiarity with drawings like the building plans. With their guidance, Loki and Sif quickly got the hang of reading them, rapidly followed by Thor and Hogun. Fandral and Volstagg declared themselves willing to trust the others, which Loki interpreted as meaning Thor, Sif and Hogun.

After a few moments, Thor summarized what they had learned:

"Assuming we have read the plans correctly, there are three main points of access: through the main front doors, the parking structure underneath the building, and via the roof. It appears the main command centre is on the sixth floor, in approximately the middle of the building, which makes it awkward to reach." Frowning thoughtfully, Thor suggested, "Mitchell and Annie, you have more experience with computers than the rest of us."

"Not _that_ much," Mitchell protested in alarm.

"Do you know what a 'computer' _is?_ " Fandral demanded. 

"Well, yes," Mitchell admitted. 

"Good! Then you know more than we do," Fandral said, clapping Mitchell on the shoulder. 

"Tony has provided instructions for disabling what he called the 'remote systems'," Thor said, taking Mitchell's silence for acquiescence and handing him some more papers. Mitchell clutched them nervously. "I suggest we work in three teams: two warriors each at the entrances, while Mitchell and Annie go with whoever enters via the roof and make their way to the control room, where you will disable these 'remote systems.'" He looked around at the others. "Does this make sense?"

"Sure," Annie agreed gamely. 

"One thing," Loki spoke up. Everyone looked at him, and he pointed at the floor plan he held. "It appears that access to the cells, where prisoners are confined, is also possible through the parking structure entrance. We should definitely investigate, so that we might determine who is being held there."

"And how are we to know whether these are criminals arrested by the real agency, or unfortunates imprisoned by the false one?" Hogun asked. 

"I suppose we will have to make a judgment when we find them," Loki said. Hogun continued to look suspicious. Hogun always looked at least a little bit suspicious-- Loki had for years believed that to be his natural expression-- but this was more specific. Loki raised an eyebrow. "Wait, wait-- do you suspect me of plotting to free my evil allies, so that I may turn on you and join Hydra's attack? Is that it?"

"Of course not," Fandral said quickly, and, "No, no," said Volstagg, and "Do not be silly," protested Sif. 

Hogun said nothing, nor did his expression change. Thor glanced at Loki and then kept grimly silent, watching Hogun but permitting Loki to speak for himself. 

"I do not know whether you have been keeping count," Loki said icily, "but two-thirds of the friends I possess-- three-quarters, if we count Thor as a friend as well as a brother-- are currently in this aircraft, and the final one is back at Tony's lodge. As far as allies are concerned, they are without exception on their way to New York to confront Hydra. There is no one left to be contained in the SHIELD cells. And I realize you have little reason to believe me capable of affection, so we shall leave that out of the equation, but do you really believe I am quite so eager to turn on _everyone_ who can stand me, and find myself entirely alone in the universe _again?_ " 

Hogun continued to say nothing, and Thor finally decided it was time to speak up:

"I told you yesterday that I regretted, many years ago, making a choice between my friends and my brother, and that I would not do so again. I should have added, _unless I am compelled to_. And you need to know, my very dear friend, that if you force me, it will not be you who I choose." Deliberately turning his shoulder to Hogun, Thor leaned toward Loki. "You are, of course, correct: the cells must be investigated. Have you any thoughts on how that should be done?"

Loki, conscious of his face flaming but working very hard to keep his voice calm, replied, "I can sense the consciousness inside the cells, and would therefore be the obvious choice to investigate them. If you will trust me to do so," he could not forbear from adding. 

Thor gave him a level look. "That remark is unworthy of either of us, brother. However, I agree with the sense of it. So: your assignment will be the parking structure. I had thought the main entrance would be ideal in terms of creating a large and noisy distraction, and therefore suggest myself as the obvious candidate for that role. Sif, will you lead Annie and Mitchell through the roof access?"

"Certainly," Sif agreed immediately, although Loki suspected she might have been on the point of volunteering for the parking structure assignment-- more to prove her loyalty to Thor than her trust of Loki, of course, but that was understandable. 

"As for the rest of us-- " Thor began.

"I will go with Loki," Volstagg spoke up immediately, then glanced uneasily at him. "If you will permit me to join you?"

It was hardly the time to quibble about personal preferences, but the fact was, if Loki was to be forced to cooperate with any of Thor's friends apart from Sif, he would have picked Volstagg of his own volition. There was probably little to choose between the Warriors Three in terms of lingering suspicion toward and dislike of Loki, but for Loki's part he had always felt rather less of either for Volstagg. 

"Of course," he said, forcing a smile to his lips. "Gladly." He was quite sure Volstagg did not believe the final word, but the big warrior at least pretended to. 

Sif spoke up. "Thor, if you intend to create a noisy distraction, Fandral is best suited to support you." She smiled sweetly at Fandral, who made a face at her. "Shall we say he goes with you, and Hogun with Annie, Mitchell, and myself?" 

Loki flinched-- really, if he had to make a choice, he would have taken Hogun himself rather than inflict him upon Annie and Mitchell in his current frame of mind. It was apparent that Sif was making her own statement of loyalty, and that was between herself and Thor. Fandral, also apparently understanding her motives and unwilling to provoke any discussion of them, made agreeable noises.

"Certainly," Thor agreed, and did not ask Mitchell or Annie what they thought of the plan. Once again, Loki was reminded that his brother was a soldier, and soldiers do not take personal preferences into account when missions are assigned. For their part, Loki's two housemates offered no objections. Thor went on, "Very well. We have a little time to plan our courses. Let us not waste it."

~oOo~

Had Loki been in a vengeful frame of mind-- and he was not saying that was not the case-- he might have found considerable amusement in the means by which Hogun-- and also, of course, Mitchell and Sif-- had to reach the roof of the SHIELD building. Clearly the helicopter could not openly approach without drawing attention to itself: even an air ambulance would be under SHIELD's surveillance, and for it to hover would surely lead to intense suspicion. 

Annie was naturally able to transport herself, but the other three did not have that option. They could hardly climb up the side of the building without being spotted, either. Loki therefore created a shielding glamour and what amounted to a magical rope bridge. The helicopter hovered at what they hoped was an inconspicuous distance, and Mitchell, Sif, and Hogun used the "bridge" to gain the roof. This was perhaps more of a drain on Loki's magical reserves than was strictly wise, but nobody could think of a different plan. Not even Hogun apparently thought Loki would let go of the charm halfway, since that would obviously cause Mitchell to fall to his death along with Hogun and Sif. For his part, Loki restrained the vicious urge to remind the silent warrior that, Mitchell being technically dead in the first place, there was a limit to the harm that could be done to him even by a ten-storey drop. 

Annie waited until the others were safely at their goal, then allowed Loki to pretend he was not sweating and trembling as she kissed him goodbye and transported herself. She waved once from the roof, and the helicopter moved on. 

By the time they disembarked from another roof nearby, Loki had pulled himself together. Once again he cast a glamour to conceal them from the eyes of passersby, releasing Thor and Fandral as they reached the front of the building, but retaining it upon Volstagg and himself until they were around the corner. 

"All right," Loki began in a whisper, "I suggest that we-- "

"One moment," Volstagg interrupted. "I must... say something." Loki was desperately tempted to point out just how inappropriate the moment was for heart-to-heart conversation, but on second thoughts he realized it would be faster to hear Volstagg out than argue with him. Accordingly, he schooled his expression into what he hoped was a look of encouragement.

Volstagg spluttered for a moment, and then blurted miserably, 

"I truly did not realize how unhappy you were, all those years. I really am sorry. I wish... I'm sorry." 

Quite a number of thoughts chased each other through Loki's mind in that instant, but he seemed unable to voice any of them. In the void of silence, Volstagg went on desperately, 

"I see now, I should have realized, it was loneliness that kept you hanging around us. I should have been kinder. It was just... you seemed so cold and self-contained, for so long, that I forgot you had ever been any other way. I thought you were content like that. I thought it was your way."

Loki found his tongue, and what he managed to say was as nearly fair as he could manage: "Well, considering I would rather have died than let you know what I felt, I can hardly blame you for that." 

It occurred to him that his own pride had played him false, and not only with his brother's friends. He had put all the strength he had into constructing his defenses, in concealing anything vulnerable about himself. He supposed it had been unfair of him, to at the same time wish someone would see what was behind his walls, when he was himself the one who had made them so nearly impregnable in the first place. One could hardly have it both ways.

Volstagg made an uneasy gesture. "I still feel I should have... my older son, Alaric, seems to say whatever he thinks and feels. His younger brother is... quieter. His mother and I have to remember to draw him out. I have been thinking of that, since our time on Vanaheim."

Loki barely restrained himself from reassuring Volstagg that it was very unlikely his son would grow up to be a fratricide and traitor. Then he was conscious of a momentary stab of weary anger at the realization that, of course, Volstagg's real concern would naturally be for someone other than Loki. 

And then common sense asserted itself: of course Volstagg was primarily concerned with his own child, and with the future. Nothing could be done about the past except to regret it, and clearly he did. And for no real reason: Volstagg had never been responsible for anything that happened to Loki.

Forcing a smile, Loki patted Volstagg on the arm. "Well, I am sure your boy appreciates the fact you try. Rolf, am I correct?" Volstagg nodded, looking startled. Loki found this annoying: surely Volstagg did not think Loki had so many acquaintances with children that he could not keep track of their names?

Clearly, Loki was more disturbed than he was willing to admit, if he was so determined to take offense at Volstagg's every response. And this was hardly the time for such a conversation, anyway. 

"Later, I will want to hear more about your boys-- and your daughters, too, of course-- but at the moment, I think we had best be about our business, don't you?" Loki managed to hold onto the smile, but Volstagg, his expression mournful, merely repeated, 

"I am sorry."

"I forgive you," Loki blurted, because it seemed the only thing he could say that would end this. It was not until he said the words that he knew they were true. Nothing could be done about the past except to regret it, but Volstagg did, and as useless as it seemed, knowing that was so... helped. Loki grabbed hold of Volstagg's hand, his smile suddenly genuine. "I do. And I am sorry I held onto my own anger for so long. Perhaps we really can start over, assuming we live through the next few days. Now-- shall we go?'

Volstagg smiled back, looking strangely as though a weight had been taken from his shoulders. "Yes, certainly." 

~oOo~

Whatever Tony had been thinking, when he designed this costume, it was not of stealth or a need for concealment. On the other hand, Loki reflected, when he removed the glamour, the sudden appearance of a horned apparition nearly eight feet tall produced a most satisfactory reaction in the SHIELD guards. 

"Good afternoon!" he said, injecting manic cheerfulness into his tone. Humans seemed to find manic cheerfulness alarming, especially when it came from someone eight feet tall and with horns. At the same moment, warning bells began to sound, and lights to flash, indicating at least one of the other parties had also begun its part of the operation. 

The first of the ant-like guards raised his pulse rifle and fired. Loki cast a shielding spell and deflected it, with unfortunate results to a nearby car, which began to emit a most unpleasant shrill noise. Fortunately for everyone's hearing, the next deflected blast from the second guard's rifle silenced it. 

And then Volstagg, who under cover of the glamour had crept around behind the guards, stepped forward and swept their two heads together. Despite their helmets, Loki still cringed at the hollow crunching sound that could be heard upon impact. Volstagg let go of the two men and they dropped, limp, to the concrete. 

"I keep forgetting how fragile mortals are," Volstagg murmured regretfully, looking down at the two black-clad figures in their pitiful heap. Loki clamped down on the impulse to investigate whether the guards were still alive and if he could help them: there was no time for that. Besides, there would surely be infinite numbers of guards arriving at any moment, and if there was anything to be done for these two, their comrades would see to it. 

"Come," he said, gesturing sharply. Volstagg did, casting such a remorseful look at the two still forms that Loki heard himself say, in the most comforting tone he could manage, "That was not your fault. It was not intentional." Such reassurances would have made little impact on Loki, had he been the one who had felled the guards, so he was not surprised when Volstagg did not seem to feel any better for them.

But there really was no time for much more, so he contented himself with patting Volstagg on the arm and then leading the way at a run toward the steel door that led from the garage into the building. It was an imposing portal, one that could not be opened without attracting notice anyway, which was why they had opted to drop the glamour when they did. It was certainly proof against the strength even of Volstagg, and in all likelihood could not be pierced by... torpedoes, Loki thought, and was vaguely aware he was somehow not choosing the right mortal weapon as his mental illustration. He had a feeling it was not torpedoes that were fired out of cannons. 

Loki placed his hand on the device that read the access cards carried by SHIELD agents, sent a jolt of magic through it, and the door opened sweetly of its own accord. Loki and Volstagg slipped through and Loki locked it behind them, using a spell that would take quite some time to wear off and would ensure anyone currently in the garage would need to find a different way into the building. Assuming-- the spell being comprehensive-- he or she could get out of the garage at all. Loki hoped anyone trapped by it had brought a packed lunch to work. 

They were in a small lobby containing an elevator as well as a door leading into the stairwell. The elevator looked like a trap waiting to slam shut, and without any need for consultation Loki and Volstagg opted for the stairs. 

The cells were on the level below. The commotion in the garage, combined with the ructions raised by the other two groups at the main doors and on the roof, should keep the staff in the building occupied, at least long enough for Loki and Volstagg to investigate the cells. Loki cast the glamour upon himself and Volstagg again, and the two of them hastened down the stairs under its cover. There was, alas, nothing they could do about the sound of their feet on the metal steps. 

There was also nothing they could do about the fact they took up the entire stairwell. This unfortunately meant that, when three guards unexpectedly came running up the stairs from the cells, there was a collision of considerable force. The three guards tumbled backward down to the landing, and Loki-- who had been squashed breathlessly between the burly guards and the voluminous Volstagg-- nearly impaled poor Volstagg upon the horns of his helmet. The glamour fell away as both of them sat down abruptly on the stairs. Or, rather, Volstagg sat on the stairs, and Loki sat on Volstagg. This gave Loki a sudden mental image of Midgardian children and Father Christmas, and his unruly sense of humour very nearly got the better of him. He had almost mastered it when Volstagg spoke, guiltily: 

"I did not mean to do that, either."

Loki could not help it, between the adrenaline and the ridiculousness of the situation he let out a howl of laughter, then scrambled off Volstagg's lap and tugged the bigger man to his feet. 

"It was, however, most effective," he giggled, vaulted over the sprawled and gasping guards with the aid of the handrail, and then turned back to use a handful of magic to assist Volstagg in getting over the poor stunned guards without stepping on any of them. "Come along."

Down on the cell level, Loki cast a spell that locked the doors behind them, and suddenly found himself entirely disinclined toward laughter. The concrete corridor with its blank steel doors was oppressive enough, but that was not enough to explain the claustrophobia that suddenly rose within him. He had no memory of ever having been here-- for all he knew he had been bundled directly into an aircraft after his abduction, and had never been in the cells in this building at all-- but just the awareness of where he was made his breath catch in his chest. For a moment he could actually smell damp and waste and vomit-- 

And then a hand clasped his shoulder. He started violently, before remembering Volstagg. Loki turned, and was surprised at the troubled look on the warrior's face.

"I had nearly forgotten you, too, were a prisoner in one of these," the big man said quietly. "Are you all right?"

Loki started to make a dismissive sound, glanced at Volstagg's face, and stopped himself. Rejecting kindness was itself unkind. 

"Really, I am fine," he said instead. "I was just… unprepared. It is nothing serious, at least not compared to whatever poor souls may still be in here. I need to-- " He made himself smile, felt it wobble on his face, and the answering expression of sympathy on Volstagg's would, once, have made him bristle. But sympathy and pity were not the same thing, and now he could tell the difference. Volstagg patted him with a clumsy hand and then let go, and Loki sent his mind out to examine the cells. 

Whatever SHIELD was doing under the thumb of the Dire Wraiths, it did not seem to include arresting evil-doers, because at first glance the cell block appeared to be empty. Except-- 

The last cell on Loki's left, down at the very end of the corridor. Loki was about to pass it by when he recognized magic pushing him away. There was a glamour of some sort on the cell, enough to cause most to see it as empty, perhaps even to forget about it altogether. Even Loki nearly missed it, until a whiff of Dire Wraith magic brought his senses to full alert and he realized there could be only one reason for the Wraiths to cloak this cell. He applied his full concentration and got past the glamour.

There was someone in there. Someone human and powerless, weak and confused and frightened and very angry. Someone who felt… betrayed. 

Loki took two steps toward the cell and then stopped short as recognition dawned. 

"What is it?" Volstagg asked, worried again.

"There is a man in that cell," Loki replied, pointing. "I can open the door, but I think it would be best if you are the one who actually frees him." At Volstagg's confused expression, Loki explained, "His name is Cray, he is an employee of this agency, and the last time we met I convinced him I was going to feed him to a werewolf."

"You did what?" asked Volstagg, eyes as wide as a child being told a tale of monsters. 

"It seemed necessary at the time," Loki mumbled. "Agent Coulson had been kidnapped, we-- the Avengers and my friends and I-- feared for his safety, and we believed Agent Cray knew more than he was willing to tell. It was the night of the full moon, which causes George to transform, and… Thor and I frightened the poor man quite badly, but Tony released him and I assumed he was able to return safely home."

"Apparently not," Volstagg murmured. 

Loki winced guiltily. "I do not understand it. As I say, he was employed by this agency, and acted at its behest. Why would he be punished in this way?" The question was rhetorical, and Volstagg did not bother trying to answer it. 

"Well," the big warrior replied, practically, "we are here to help him now."

"Indeed," Loki agreed, and sent a blast of magic through the lock on the door. It slid open just as the power in the building failed. "I see Mitchell and Annie have reached the control room," Loki remarked, conjuring a handful of green flames to light their way into the cell. 

It would have been preferable, really, for the lights to have stayed on a little longer: in the flickering glow of the magical flames, Loki could see Agent Cray look up, dull-eyed, only to freeze in panic at the sight of the vast outline of Volstagg, and the horned one of Loki. Really, they all-- and particularly Tony-- should have considered the fact the helmet looked far more appropriate to a supervillain than a hero, particularly in silhouette and lit by magic. Loki attempted to undo some of the damage by making soothing noises, but Volstagg was the one who saved the situation with his matter-of-fact practicality:

"Hello," he said, striding into the cramped quarters. "We are here to rescue you. Come with us." 

And then he calmly picked up Cray and followed Loki out of the cell. The agent was either reassured by Volstagg's manner, or simply too weak to struggle-- given that his presence in the cell was masked by magic, he was probably not being cared for by his erstwhile comrades, and based on his own experiences Loki was not willing to bet the Dire Wraiths would be conscientious about feeding and caring for a captive. Really, all things considered, both Loki and Agent Coulson could have fared much worse. 

Back in the corridor, Loki made one final sweep to make absolutely certain they had not missed anything, that no one was being left behind in the place. 

Then, still lighting the way with his magical flames, he and Volstagg and Cray headed for the door back to the stairwell.


	27. Chapter 27

The flight across the Atlantic gave the Avengers plenty of time to come up with a plan. Tony suggested several, of varying degrees of complication, which finally made the others demand he stop either watching old James Bond movies, or hanging around with Loki. 

"The point here isn't to come up with the funniest idea," Steve rebuked, when even his patience ran out. "It's to come up with a plan that'll work."

"I've got one of those," Fury growled. He glanced at Steve and Tony. "And it's what you might call elegant in its simplicity, too."

When the Avengers arrived in New York and flanked Fury and Hill as they walked up to the main doors of SHIELD's central Headquarters, Tony had to hand it to Fury: his plan was indeed very simple. 

Slapping the door aside like it was a disorderly underling, Fury strode into the lobby, leather coat flaring behind him like a cape, and bellowed, 

"What in the _hell_ is going on around here?" 

As far as the guards in the lobby knew, Colonel Fury was no longer Director of SHIELD. This belief had no effect whatsoever on their reactions, which appeared to be motivated entirely by their instincts for self-preservation: they backed away from him, weapons lowered. Then, and with obvious relief, they spotted Maria Hill. 

Still clad in her yoga clothes, along with the hooded sweatshirt that had previously been worn by Loki and running shoes loaned by Pepper Potts, Hill's wardrobe suggested she might be about to do a load of laundry, and then perhaps tidy the bathroom. Her bearing, on the other hand, hinted that anyone left alive by Fury would not last long if they crossed her. 

"You heard Director Fury," she snarled, looking around. Tony was grateful to be safely suited up, and Tony was _on her side._ "Tell us: what has this organization come to? We've been held prisoner by _Hydra_ , and we get out to find SHIELD's locking people up without trial, conniving with that sniveling weasel Justin Hammer, treating the Avengers like they've gone rogue-- "

"Steve, you recognize any of this? Any organizations carry on like this in your memory?" Fury jumped in again when Hill paused for breath. "From before your little nap, maybe?"

"I certainly do," Steve, or rather Captain America, agreed. The two guards, who to be fair had probably had no idea what was going on at the higher level and had just been... following orders... looked bewildered. Fury and Hill walked forward, Fury for the guards and Hill heading for the elevators. The guards wisely gave ground, but Fury kept coming. Finally, the guards were both cornered against the wall. Fury snatched the access card clipped to the belt of one of them. 

"We're going up to the offices," he announced. "Hawkeye and the Black Widow will keep an eye on you down here, while the rest of us figure out what in _hell_ we can do to save this organization. Don't do anything stupid."

Looking at the posture of the two guards, Tony suspected that was nothing to worry about: they didn't look like they planned to do _anything,_ let alone anything that might provoke Natasha and Clint. 

The access card worked on the elevator. They were halfway to the Director's suite of offices when Tony's communicator rang with a call from Coulson. 

~oOo~

"So how did a guy like you end up hanging out with the Norse God of Mischief, anyway?" Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, asked happily, spinning his chair around in the security command room. George tried to ignore him, keep his concentration on the different voices in different languages that sounded from the various channels he was checking on in sequence. It was difficult. "Because I would think if he was going to, like, manifest himself here on Earth, it would make more sense for him to show up in Norway. Although he does talk like a British guy. Why does he talk like a British guy, if he's a Norse god?"

George began to pray either for the full moon to arrive two weeks ahead of schedule, or for Agent Coulson to remember he was armed. Johnny Storm kept right on talking, never pausing long enough for one of his endless questions to be answered even if George had wanted to:

"Like I said before, in the stories he doesn't sound very much like a superhero. Not that he comes off like a super _villain_ either, exactly, not like Doctor Doom or whatever, I just don't see him as a guy who'd take it very seriously if the Earth got taken over by Hydra and aliens from space. I mean, I know he said he likes Bristol, but couldn't he just go back to Asgard or whatever they call it? Hey, what did he mean when he said he was a custodian instead of a god? Is that some other kind of, like, rank they have on Asgard, like one step down from a god or something? He can't have meant he was a janitor, can he? That would be really weird. Although I guess it would be cool to be able to clean all the floors in a building in a second, by magic. Oh, hey, you know that story about him giving birth to the eight-legged horse? Is that one true? Have you ever asked him about it?"

George turned in his chair, looked into Johnny's eager, friendly face, and opened his mouth. 

Fortunately, before George could say anything that might adversely affect the superhero alliance, the door to the command room opened. Susan Storm popped her blond head inside and looked around. 

"Hi," she said, as cheerful as her little brother but far less hyperactive. "Can I do something here? Except make tea," she added hastily. "I don't make tea."

"Can you get him out of here?" Coulson asked, jerking a thumb at Johnny, who looked hurt.

"Hey!" the Human Torch protested.

"I'll just go look for the kettle, shall I?" Susan replied brightly. Then she looked at the frank desperation on George's face, sighed, and stepped into the room. She raised one hand in the direction of her brother and appeared to be thinking hard about something. 

"Aw, Sue, don't be like that," Johnny protested, starting to rise. An invisible force pushed him back into the chair. "That's not funny!" Johnny fumed.

"Sorry, Johnny," Susan replied sweetly, hand still raised. Johnny's wheeled chair, with a protesting Johnny in it, rolled neatly out the door, which closed itself after him. 

Susan smiled at George. "Better?"

"Much, thank you," George replied. 

"He doesn't mean any harm, you know," Susan said, apparently a loyal big sister, which really was kind of endearing. "He almost never means to drive people crazy. It just seems to... happen." 

"Yes, I can see where that might be the case," Coulson said dryly. Susan's smile turned into a mischievous little grin, and then she sobered.

"He really doesn't mean to be nosy," she defended Johnny, and then stopped to consider. "Well, no, that's actually not true: he _totally_ means to be nosy. What he doesn't mean is to be offensive. He'd be awfully sorry if he hurt your feelings or anything like that, he just doesn't have any filters of any kind. And in his defense, it is a little bit mind-blowing, to find out the people in all those old Norse myths are real, even though the stories apparently aren't?" She let the end of the sentence turn upward into a question and looked at George.

"They aren't," George said firmly. He blinked, remembering. "In fact, the night before SHIELD abducted him, Loki was reading a collection of Norse myths. I've never seen him laugh as hard as he did over some of them. I just wish I had thought to stop him before he got to Ragnarok, because then, of course, he went to bed all worked up about it. And I don't think he'd even read all the way to the part about Thor killing Jormungandr, the World Serpent, and then taking nine steps before falling down dead. Which is just as well, he was upset enough by the one about him being tied up under the snake, corrosive venom dripping into his face." Catching sight of Susan's questioning expression, George said defensively, "He's more sensitive than you think. Really, though, come to think of it, that story might have upset him enough to call in sick the next day, and if he had, he might not have gotten kidnapped after all."

"No, they kidnapped him on purpose. They'd have gotten to him sooner or later," Coulson asserted, glancing at George in what, if you knew Coulson well enough, was a kindly manner. Then the agent looked back at Susan. "Where are the others?"

"Reed and Ben?" she replied, referring respectively to Mr. Fantastic and the Thing. "Down in the TV room, coming up with strategies for how to attack every SHIELD building they can find plans for. I was helping them, until I realized we had misplaced Johnny. And I really did want to know if we could do anything to help you guys?" she added, tilting the words up into another question.

"I don't think so," George replied, switching channels again and listening to Helsinki for a moment. "Thank you, though."

"Have you heard anything significant yet?" Susan asked, turning toward the window as she spoke. 

George shook his head, and then, because her back was turned, said out loud, "Not yet. Just a lot of business-as-usual chatter. Although..." 

Coulson looked at him. "What?"

"You know," George said slowly, "it's just occurred to me... You're monitoring the English channels, too, right?" George was mostly concentrating on the channels on which languages other than English were being spoken, but he cycled through the English-language ones as well, to keep himself in tune with the general context of SHIELD communications. 

"Sure," Coulson replied. "Why?"

George fidgeted with his spectacles. "Well, now I think of it... have you heard anything from the helicarrier?" 

Coulson stared at him for a moment, then his mouth opened. 

Before he could say a word, Susan spoke. 

"Um, guys?" she said, still staring frozen out the window. 

"Yes?" Coulson prompted.

Susan swallowed audibly. "I... I think I found your helicarrier."

~oOo~

Magneto turned his hand and the rifles held by the SHIELD guards flew from their hands, tying themselves into knots as they did so. Magneto smiled, a warm and understanding smile that seemed to terrify them. 

"Come now," he said kindly, ignoring the fact these were probably locals whose command of English was incomplete at best, "there is no need to make this difficult for yourselves. We have no quarrel with you."

"Unless, of course, they are Dire Wraiths," suggested Mystique, in a tone that suggested she rather hoped that was the case. 

"No," Xavier's voice sounded in both their heads. "These are humans. The front-line guards are, without exception. Do not harm them."

Mystique's head jerked. "I realize it is necessary to remain in contact with Charles, but I have always hated when he does that."

Magneto's smile did not change. "Indulge him for the moment, my dear. Charles, you are maintaining contact with the others, are you?"

"I am," Xavier's voice sounded in Magneto's head and no one else's. 

"How are they managing?"

There was a pause. "Well, it appears the Fantastic Four have discovered Hydra's new target."

~oOo~

"Is there anywhere here you can hide?" Susan asked George, as they ran down the staircase to the front door. 

_"Hide?"_ George demanded, not sure whether he was more affronted or relieved at the suggestion. 

"Yes, hide. Does Stark have a bomb shelter or a bunker or something?" Susan demanded. "Somewhere you can take Pepper and the staff to hide while we fight this thing off?" 

George looked up, at the approaching bulk of the helicarrier, and swallowed hard. 

"There's a sort of storage bunker out back," he replied. "I don't know how much safer they'll be in it, though."

"I'd say: not much," Susan replied, without taking her eyes off the helicarrier. "But it's worth a try. Find the others and tell them to get under cover."

George looked up just as something human-sized and blazing shot past overheard, heading directly for the ominous bulk of the helicarrier. Mentally apologizing for every uncharitable thought he had ever had about the Human Torch, George turned and bolted back into the lodge, yelling for Pepper. 

Pepper, fortunately, knew exactly how many staff members were at the lodge and exactly where each was at the moment. Considering that, as far as George knew, she had spent ninety percent of her time in her office, continuing to remotely run Stark Industries, this was rather impressive. 

Equally impressive was the calm with which she then went about the business of shepherding the rest of the staff-- a cook, two "outside workers," and a couple of cleaners-- into the bunker. 

"Okay," George said, gulping. "You stay here with them. I'm going-- "

Pepper grabbed him by the arm. "You're going where?"

"I'm going back out to-- You don't want me here anyway, I'll only start screaming and frighten everyone. I'm going to see whether I can help Coulson and Susan. The helicarrier should be opening fire on us any minute." It was strange, actually, that it hadn't happened yet. 

Pulling loose from Pepper, George ran back outside and around to the front of the lodge, where the reason they were not yet under fire became evident: Susan was standing on the lawn in front of the lodge, hands raised, face stark grey under her pale hair as she cast a forcefield that held the great vessel back, absorbing the blasts of its weaponry. 

It was abundantly clear that she would not be able to hold out much longer. Already, as George watched, a trickle of blood began to run from her nostrils and her face was rigid with effort.

Above them, the Human Torch was circling the helicarrier like a comet, casting balls of flame at the deck. His actions seemed more designed to harass the crew rather than really damage the vessel. As George watched, from outside the forcefield, Mr. Fantastic stretched and then threw himself, like a boarding ladder on a ship, at the lower side of the helicarrier, and the Thing scrabbled his way up. Mr. Fantastic then drew himself up after, an endeavour that struck George as frankly suicidal. The particular skills of those two heroes seemed better adapted for single combat than taking on an entire warship. 

On the other hand, at least they were _doing_ something. 

"George." The voice somehow managed to shout his name while creating the impression of calm, understated speech. George turned to see Coulson exiting the lodge, carrying what looked like a rifle modified with a section of downspout piping. It took George a moment to sort through a series of images from war movies he had seen, and identify the weapon as a rocket launcher. 

"Where did you-- ?" 

"Tony has a playroom in the cellar," Coulson replied flatly. At George's expression, he clarified, "Or, rather, a workroom for projects he has underway. The stairs are just off the kitchen. Come help me with the ammunition."

George was a person who was normally full of questions, but even he could see this was not the time for them. Not with Susan looking like she might collapse into a pile of ash or something at any moment. Coulson put down the rocket launcher on the steps and went back into the lodge at a brisk walk that was somehow faster than George, at his heels, could run. 

Back outside, Coulson carried the rocket launcher outside Susan's by-now flickering forcefield, while George-- trying not to think about what might happen if he dropped one-- ferried the rockets to him. 

"Okay," Coulson said, without looking at George, as he loaded the first rocket, "time for you to get under cover."

"Don't be ridiculous," George quavered. "Just tell me when you need me to hand one of these things to you."

"Thanks," Coulson said after a moment, and fired his first rocket. It exploded against the underside of the helicarrier. George handed over another rocket, trying not to blanch at the idea of the full might of the helicarrier being directed at them. 

Coulson fired again, and then--

\-- the helicarrier turned slowly toward the south, and then, with a final parting shot that fortunately did more damage to an evergreen hedge than anyone else, sailed ponderously away. 

Susan, hands still raised, took a wobbly step backwards, then wiped at her bleeding nose with the heel of her right hand, and sat down abruptly on the grass. Coulson continued to cover the helicarrier's retreat, but George carefully set down the shell he was holding and ran to Susan. 

"Are you okay?" he asked-- stupidly, considering the colour of her complexion and the blood coming from her nose. Susan, now clutching her head, nodded woozily. 

"Yes, fine," she muttered. "Sorry."

"Are you kidding? That was amazing," George said, offering her a hand to her feet. Susan accepted the assistance, her grip stronger than George expected. When she had her feet securely under her, George addressed the pressing question of the moment: "Where do you suppose it's going?"

"Wherever it's going, it's taking my brother and my husband with it," Susan replied, with an expression that suggested, current wobbliness notwithstanding, she would not be long taking up the pursuit.

"At a guess?" Coulson replied. "London. We had better try to alert the others."

~oOo~

Mitchell and Annie let Sif and Hogun lead the way through the access door from the roof. As the two warriors engaged the first wave of SHIELD guards, the vampire and the ghost bolted for the stairs at the end of the corridor. The access door required a code, so Mitchell typed in the override code Tony had supplied him with. Annie was waiting for him on the other side when he got the door open and slipped through. 

"Should we leave Sif and Hogun to deal with all those guards by themselves?" Annie asked. 

"Why should we care what happens to the guards?" Mitchell retorted. Screams began to be heard from the corridor-- none of them sounded Asgardian-- as Mitchell took off down the stairs at a run, catching up to Annie on the sixth floor. "Here we go," he said, and opened the door out of the stairwell. 

"Halt! Put your hands up!" demanded a voice like an Imperial stormtrooper, and Mitchell turned to his left to see a black-clad guard wearing the ant-like helmet and facemask of SHIELD assault troops, aiming a pulse rifle at him. 

"I really don't have time for this," Mitchell sighed, and then started toward his adversary, walking slowly, head tilted slightly forward, fangs bared and eyes turning into inky soulless pits. The guard, rifle notwithstanding, froze like an animal faced with a much more dangerous predator. "I really would rather not hurt you, human," Mitchell informed him, in a hiss. "But-- "

Behind Mitchell came the sound of running feet as another guard joined his partner, dashing up the hall-- 

\-- directly into a fire extinguisher that, to human eyes, leaped of its own accord off the wall and smashed into his facemask. Even with the protective mask, the jolt knocked his head into the back of the helmet hard enough to stun him. The guard stumbled backward two paces, fell on his back, and Annie clubbed him again with the fire extinguisher. 

"Last chance," Mitchell told his quarry softly, moving forward. The guard fired. Mitchell snarled at the impact of the energy pulse, then batted the rifle out of the man's hand, grabbed him by the collar, and ripped it open to expose his throat. 

"Mitchell-- " Annie warned, on an apprehensive high note. 

Mitchell smiled, a smile containing far too many teeth-- and then threw the guard through the door into the stairwell, closed it and activated the lock. 

"What?" he demanded, in a tone of offended innocence, as he stepped over the guard Annie had flattened and started off in the direction of the control room. 

"Nothing," Annie replied faintly, and followed him. 

Tony's master access code also worked on the door to the control room. The half-dozen humans inside-- without Loki there to identify Dire Wraiths it seemed safest to assume everyone they met was a human-- were in shirtsleeves instead of uniforms, and all of them more or less resembled George. As a result, Mitchell's befanged menace was pretty half-hearted, but even half-hearted vampire menace, accompanied by Annie walking unseen around the room to strategically pick up and throw items from the desktops, was enough to create a stampede toward the door. 

Once the room was clear, Annie stood lookout while Mitchell dug Tony's instructions out of his jacket pocket and got busy trying to bring down the power and communications grid, as well as the backups, within the building. 

"How will we know when it's worked?" Annie asked, peering anxiously out the door and wondering whether she should be guilty or relieved that the guard she'd hit still wasn't moving.

"Search me," Mitchell replied, just as the windowless room was plunged into darkness. "On second thought, I think we’ve got it."

"And now we wait for the others to come find us?" Annie quavered. 

"Guess so," Mitchell replied. There was a thump from somewhere near the door.

"Ow!" Annie exclaimed.

"What's the matter?"

"Tripped over a chair," Annie explained. Mitchell didn't bother pointing out that it could not possibly have hurt, since Annie had simply never gotten over the instinct to say "ouch" when something happened that would have hurt her when she was alive. "Keep talking, would you? I'm trying to come join you."

"Sure, I'm right here wishing I had thought to ask Tony for an electric torch," Mitchell replied, then reached out and caught Annie by the wrist. She screamed. "Sorry, I keep forgetting my night vision is better than yours. Come here and sit tight." He rolled a chair over from the next cubicle and sat Annie in it. "There. Now we wait."

"Right," Annie agreed, in the tone of one keeping up her courage by reminding herself that the only things nearby that generally went bump in the night were herself and Mitchell. 

And then the mobile phone-- which Mitchell was carrying because Loki did not have pockets and none of the Asgardians, including Thor, understood mobiles-- rang. 

~oOo~

Loki and Volstagg managed to get from the confinement level back up to the lobby without tripping over each other or smacking Agent Cray's head into the walls. As they exited the stairwell, however, Loki nearly fell headlong over what appeared to be the remains of the security desk. Indeed, if Volstagg had not reached out with his free hand to snag him by the back of his leather coat, Loki might have taken a painful and most undignified tumble. 

"Thank you, Volstagg," Loki said and, there being sufficient natural light to see by, extinguished his magical flames and looked around. "Brother? Was all this necessary?"

There was perhaps more natural light than was strictly normal, the tinted and presumably shatterproof windows of the lobby all being… well, shattered was the only word. Glass, or perhaps some sturdier material, crunched under Loki's boots as he turned to survey the rubble. There was a smell of ozone, and of something burnt, in the air. The absence of any signs of life apart from Thor and Fandral suddenly struck Loki with a jab of uneasiness. Exactly how much force had his brother thought was necessary-- ?

"The guards put up a considerable resistance," Thor explained. "I was forced to conjure a whirlwind and propel them into a large briefing room, I believe it is called an 'auditorium,' at the other end of the hall. I then used lightning to seal the doors, which are of steel, to the doorframes. I have been in that room before, and it possesses no window, and also very high ceilings." 

"The humans are unharmed," Fandral supplied, looking closely at Loki's expression, "but it should prove quite difficult for them to escape." 

Loki managed to suppress his sigh of relief. Fortunately Fandral chose not to comment, and Thor, being distracted by the sight of Agent Cray in Volstagg's arms, did not notice. 

"I believe we have met this mortal," Thor remarked, studying Cray.

"Yes," Loki agreed. "Perhaps you remember Agent Cray? You and George and I had a word with him, some days ago in Scotland." Thor looked blank for a moment, and then apparently connected "Scotland" with "Tony's lodge"-- or perhaps simply remembered demanding information with menaces, George filling the role of the menaces.

"And where did you find him, brother?" Thor asked, before realizing himself what the answer must be. "He was in the cells? Why?"

"Indeed," Loki agreed. "I have not yet had a chance to ask him about that." He looked up at Cray, considered asking Volstagg to put him down, and then decided the man did not look up to standing on his own feet just yet. Also, he regretted the fact that either SHIELD headquarters was deficient in machines which dispensed snack foods, or else Thor and Fandral had destroyed them, because Cray looked badly in need of some crisps or a sugary drink to restore him. Not, of course, that Loki-- lacking, as he currently did, pockets-- had any change on him at the moment. 

Dismissing this thought as unproductive, Loki asked, "Agent Cray, what can you tell us about your captivity?" Cray looked at Loki with a deeply dubious expression, and Loki sighed. "I apologize for frightening you the last time we met, but I really did need to find and rescue Agent Coulson. As you see, however, we have now found and rescued you, and my friend George never had any intent to harm you-- " there was no reason to mention that, in werewolf form, George's intention to harm someone or not had very little bearing on his actions-- "so perhaps we can start over?" 

Cray gave Loki a look that reminded him a little of Gunna back in Asgard, as though he thought Loki might indeed be a lunatic, but perhaps not a dangerous one after all. Loki made a sincere effort to look as unthreatening as was possible-- which was not easy considering he was currently eight feet tall with horns-- and Cray finally said, 

"I thought there had to be some mistake."

"What sort of mistake?" Loki asked gently. 

"About you," Cray explained. "I didn't realize you were Thor's brother. I was told you were-- " He broke off in apparent confusion, or possibly embarrassment. 

"-- a monster?" Loki prompted, as kindly as possible. "Do not worry about it, I thought the same thing myself for quite some time." 

Cray looked frankly ashamed of himself, but went on quietly, 

"I was told you were a rogue alien and a threat, and that Coulson had gone bad and was on your side, and that was why he was arrested. I didn't look into it any further, I just… I just followed orders-- " his expression indicated a bad taste in his mouth-- "but after I realized you were Thor's brother, and then that Stark was helping you, too… I thought we must have made a mistake. When I got back here I went to the deputy director, I met with him and Dr. Strange-- "

"Dr. Strange was here?" Loki asked sharply. 

"Yes, I don't know why he was in on the meeting, but he seemed to be familiar with the situation. They told me they'd look into it, see if there had been some sort of miscarriage of justice. I said thank you and got up to go, and that's the last thing I remember before I woke up in that cell."

"Was Maria Hill part of this meeting?" Loki asked. Cray shook his head. "Which means the deputy director must be a Dire Wraith as well. We are probably safe in assuming that anyone in a position of power in this organization is a Wraith. I cannot imagine they would lower themselves to impersonate common guards or troops, so the... foot soldiers are probably human. Have we yet seen anyone who is _not_ a common foot soldier here today?" 

"No," Thor replied. "The Wraiths may have withdrawn, to join Hydra in their planned assault. Perhaps they have left us the building to lull us into a false sense of accomplishment?"

"That," Loki agreed, "is certainly possible. And not a comforting thought. Very well. What shall we do next?"

Before Thor, or anyone else, could answer, the door leading to the stairwell opened and Sif, Hogun, Annie and Mitchell spilled out. 

"Guys? We have another problem," Mitchell announced. 

Loki sighed. "Of course we do." 

"What is it?" Thor asked. 

"The helicarrier-- " Mitchell began. Loki clutched his head, Thor cursed, and Cray looked anxious. Sif and the Warriors Three looked at each other in confusion. Mitchell went on, "It just showed up in Scotland and attacked the lodge."

"Attacked-- ? Are they all right? How is George?" Loki blurted, feeling hot and cold all over. It was not, of course, that he was not concerned for Coulson and Pepper and indeed everyone else at the lodge, but-- 

"It was George I spoke to. He's all right," Mitchell said hastily. "In fact, everyone is all right, the helicarrier disengaged and it's heading south." Before anyone could ask the obvious question, Mitchell added hastily, "Nobody knows why it stopped attacking, maybe they realized the Avengers weren't there, but it's heading our way."

"How terrifying," Fandral said dryly. "What is a helicarrier?"

"A very large flying warship," Thor said grimly. "One that flies very swiftly."

"Excellent," Fandral nodded. "And what do you suppose it seeks?"

"At a guess?" Thor replied. "Us."

Loki looked at Mitchell and Annie, and wished more than ever they had accepted the Allfather's invitation.


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do this for me, please: before you read this chapter, go to YouTube and do a search for "rolls royce merlin sound". Or, in fact, screw it, just go watch [**this one.**](http://youtu.be/c6c3v9iihgw)
> 
> Also, I'm aware that some of this Loki's opinions would make canon!Loki want to give him a belt round the ear. I suppose it's ironic really. I prefer to think he came out a different leg of the Trousers Of Time.

"How long do you think we have?" Mitchell asked, looking around at the others and then focusing on Thor. "How fast can the helicarrier travel?"

Thor frowned. "I estimate it should be here within three hours. Perhaps less."

"Can you handle it?" Annie asked fearfully. 

"Yes," Thor replied, at the same moment Loki said, "No." The two looked at each other, and Loki insisted, 

"Not within the city, we cannot. I am sure with sufficient lightning strikes you could bring the vessel down, brother, but this is a heavily populated part of the realm, and the consequences to its citizens would be catastrophic."

"It may be that the sacrifice must be made," Hogun pointed out. 

"Oh, thank you _very_ much," Annie snapped. 

Loki's lips pulled back from his teeth as he addressed Hogun. "On your realm, perhaps. This one is mine, and no one is dropping a helicarrier on any of its people. Not if I have anything to say about the matter." 

"Loki is correct," Thor spoke up quickly, looking at the expressions on the faces around him, and possibly fearing the consequences to group solidarity if Loki, Mitchell and Annie were to attempt to pummel Hogun. "When I spoke, I was not thinking of the consequences to innocent people on the ground. We need to meet it outside the city, and if possible bring it to bay in a relatively unpopulated area." He glanced at Loki's set, mutinous expression, and pointed out, "It may be impossible to avoid civilian casualties altogether, but mass tragedy can surely be avoided."

Loki averted his eyes from Thor's worried face. He could not say as much, but he knew perfectly well he was being unreasonable. He also knew the folly of becoming attached to anything that could not be hidden in his chambers behind a locked and bespelled door-- if losing Hildr had not taught him that lesson as a little boy, he had learned it at the hands of Thor and his friends before he was much older. The meaningless treasures in the box in his wardrobe had not been kept because they were beloved-- anything beloved was long since taken or broken-- but as proof he could indeed keep _something_ that was his, and protect it. Even his books of magic were useful, but he was not fond of them, not the way he was of his books about the pig and the spider, or the red-haired orphan girl, on his shelves at home.

It was not sensible for him to behave now as if this entire realm was his house, his friends, his lost comfort objects, but "sensible" and "Loki" were hardly old companions. This land was his to protect, and that included all the little creatures who lived within it. It would go hard with Hydra, if any injury came to his new home through them. 

Agent Cray, by now standing on his feet and leaning upon Volstagg, spoke up. 

"Whatever we're going to do, we need to hurry." Everyone looked at him, and the agent clarified: "It's a heli _carrier_. It _carries other warplanes_ , including a couple of squadrons of supersonic jet fighters."

"Supersonic? And what is 'supersonic'?" asked Fandral, who had apparently decided he might as well be the one who asked the questions the other Asgardians were thinking. 

"It means they fly faster than sound can travel," Cray explained. "In the case of the fighters on the helicarrier, two and a half times faster." He appeared to do a calculation in his head, and blanched. "At top speed, it would take them about fifteen minutes to get from northern Scotland to London."

Right on cue, everyone heard the sound of jet engines approaching from the north. 

"Damn, damn, blast," Loki snarled, wheeled, and bolted out the door. Behind him, he heard Thor telling the others to stay where they were, and then the sound of Thor's boots running after him.

The brothers should, perhaps, have stopped to consider that someone would have noticed Thor and Fandral's activities in the front lobby of the SHIELD building. And also that those activities were open to considerable misinterpretation. 

Therefore, Loki should have been less surprised when he stepped out onto the pavement and discovered the street entirely blocked by police vehicles, armoured ones in addition to ordinary panda cars. There was a contingent of black-clad and helmeted tactical officers who looked so much like SHIELD troops that Loki could hardly hide his jolt of apprehension. 

However, the spokesperson for the group was a middle-aged policeman, an ordinary mortal wearing the usual uniform, and the regular peaked hat with its checkerboard band upon his short grey hair. He stood behind a panda car, wearing a vest like Mitchell's stake-resistant one, but otherwise appareled as a regular officer, and seeming quite calm as he raised a loud-hailer to his mouth and advised them to surrender.

Thor, with his usual startlingly naïve assumption-- generally, it must be said, borne out by experience-- that everyone knew he was one of the "good guys," started confidently forward to offer explanations and, perhaps, apologies for the misunderstanding. He stopped in some confusion when he realized the black-clad tactical officers were now pointing their rifles at him.

Loki, despite his own surprise that the police had apparently not recognized, or refused to acknowledge, his brother as one of the heroes of their realm, sighed. He then spread his hands, in a gesture mortals generally understood as a declaration that one was unarmed, and made his own effort to explain: 

"I realize this situation is open to misapprehension, and I do apologize for the noise and the mess, but my brother and I are actually on your side. The aircraft you hear approaching are not friendly, and the agency that occupies this building no longer has the best interests of your realm at heart." 

"All right, sir," the police officer replied, with what Loki could only recognize as admirable composure, "you can explain it all to us down at the station. Please remain where you are and put your hands in the air."

"Again, I apologize, but that is impossible," Loki began, taking a perhaps ill-advised step toward the officer. 

From off to his left, one of the black-clad tactical officers fired his rifle. Loki had rather expected such an action. As a result, his response was already forming as the trigger was pressed: he sent up a cloud of magic, into which the bullet penetrated and then stopped, hanging in the air while the officers gaped at it, also perfectly still. The fact they, too, were enveloped in magic had, perhaps, a little to do with their muted reaction.

"Rubber, I perceive," Loki said thoughtfully, considering the bullet. "That is really very sporting of you." Turning back to the officer with the loud-hailer, who alone was still able to move, Loki said appealingly, "It is the helmet, isn't it? It must be the helmet. It creates entirely the wrong impression. I really must do something about it. However-- "

There was a roar overhead, and the leading fighter jet fired a missile into the side of the SHIELD building. It then raised its nose and accelerated directly up into the sky to avoid the fire of the two jets behind it. The trailing aircraft screamed past and, behind Loki, the already-undermined building began to crumble. 

In terms of the last thing Loki needed right now, being required to use his magic to prop up SHIELD Headquarters was very nearly at the bottom of the list. Still, he had no choice. Releasing the police officers-- the rubber bullet passed through the space where he was no longer standing-- Loki turned and cast what amounted to a magical web all around the building, holding it upright and more or less together. A stray few bricks nearly hit him as they fell from the upper storeys, but the main structure held. 

"Go," was all he managed to utter, looking desperately at Thor, who fortunately took his point: there were humans streaming out of the building already, but the guards imprisoned in the auditorium were trapped. Loki had no idea how many other SHIELD employees were still inside, and he did not dare waste any magic trying to seek them. There was no way he was going to be able to keep the building upright for more than a few minutes. The best he could hope for was to hold the structure together long enough to permit the humans to escape, and then fold it inward upon itself so that falling debris would do as little damage as possible to anything around it. 

Very fortunately, the police officers did not misinterpret Loki's actions-- all it would have taken was one rubber bullet to shake his concentration and utter disaster would result. 

There were sparks flashing in front of his eyes by the time Thor reappeared at his side, and he had the sense of having held the building up for at least a hundred years. But it could not have been more than a few moments, because as he pulled the wreckage inward and let the edifice come down upon itself, he was vaguely aware of the screaming of jet engines as the squadron came back around. The fighters were well below the speed of sound, but between their still-high speed and their proportionally rather short wings, they needed a considerable distance to perform any maneuvers. 

It was therefore another moment, and Loki's vision had a chance to clear, before he realized they were not coming back to press their original attack. Instead, the aircraft-- a dozen of them, formed into three diamond shapes of four planes each-- seemed to be converging on something else. 

Seconds later, from some distance away, there were the sounds of further explosions. The police officers, understandably, lost all interest in Loki and his companions, but as they scrambled to their vehicles-- to do what? Assist the injured? Mount a hopeless defense against the attack from the air?-- Loki seized the grey-haired officer by the arm and demanded, 

"What lies in that direction?" The officer did not reply immediately, being occupied with the radio on his belt, and Loki shook him. "I am unfamiliar with this city. What are they attacking?"

The policeman looked at Loki, and there was something terrible in his eyes as he replied, "I don't know yet, but Parliament is over that way."

Loki released the policeman. This realm was referred to as the United Kingdom, and it did in fact possess an elderly Queen of remarkable grace and dignity-- Loki had met her, or at least her shade, on another occasion, and had been considerably impressed by her personally. However, the element of local governance that fascinated Loki-- raised as he had been in an absolute monarchy and thus generally unimpressed by the trappings of kingship-- was the whole matter of parliamentary government, of general elections and representation and Members arguing in the House of Commons. It struck him as inefficient and confusing and hilarious and somehow very touching, that the humans should try so very hard to work together to govern themselves for the benefit of everyone. Absolute monarchy was of course a great deal more efficient, but parliamentary democracy was so much more _fun._

Of course Hydra would attack such an institution. It would be anathema to everything Hydra wanted: the very idea of the representatives of the subject peoples still gathering together to make their plans and state their claims. And the Queen would of course be next to go-- the Red Skull might try to compel her to pledge fealty, but if Loki's brief encounter with her allowed him to make a guess concerning her character, she would certainly die first. 

Without thinking about it, he found himself running in the direction from which the explosions had come. If he had ever been angry before, that was as nothing compared to the rage that filled him now. He had no idea what he intended to do when he got there, but whatever it was, Hydra was going to be very, very sorry. 

The captured SHIELD jets roared over once again, forming up for another deadly pass as he came in sight of the great river, and it crossed Loki's mind to wonder whether they were flown by Hydra operatives, or SHIELD thralls. He would be sorry later for what happened to them, if the latter case applied. Just now he had to think of a way to stop them. 

There was smoke rising before him, and the sound of sirens as police and fire services arrived to do what they could. He could hear people screaming.

And then, quite suddenly, all sound stopped. Loki came to a halt in the middle of a street filled with panicking, running people, and they streamed around him and his companions and suddenly seemed to vanish. The fighter jets stood still within the air. The city was silent and empty, and then, from far behind him to the northwest, Loki could hear the gurgling, bubbling trill of a bird singing in one of the public squares. It sounded like a nightingale. 

Loki turned to look at the others, who had all stopped and were gazing around in astonishment. Nobody spoke. There was no sound except for the bird's song. 

And then the bird's voice ceased, and Annie's asked, "What is _that?"_

They all turned as one, to see what seemed to be a great fog bank creeping up the river, from the direction of the sea. It spread and rose until the far side of the river was obscured by muffling, silent grey.

And then, from the tarmac under his feet, from the earth under the tarmac, from the very depths of the realm, Loki could feel something rising. 

This was not the first time he had been placed in contact with the magic of this land, but the previous occasions had occurred in a wood, and in a site of great ancient power. Loki was accustomed, in Asgard, on the other realms, to being able to control the power that lived all around him. On Midgard, especially in the heavily populated and industrialized parts, the magic had receded, seemed to have hidden itself. Even Loki, as skilled and as sensitive as he was, could not control or command it. 

However, the magic remained, and on those previous occasions it had called upon Loki, more than he upon it, to do its bidding. 

There was magic in this city, too, it was not all buried or fled, and Loki could feel it filling him, preparing to use him as a conduit. Whatever lived here recognized him as a tool, or perhaps an ally, and Loki felt a ferocious smile break out upon his face as he felt the defensive, protective fury of the magic rise within him. 

Oh, yes. The realm had indeed been rendered stubborn and irritable. This, as the mortals said, was going to be good.

From somewhere in the fog they could all now hear a new sound: the rattle of a snare drum, muffled and distant but growing louder. Mitchell, his voice dreamy, spoke:

 _"Drake, he's in his hammock  
And a thousand mile away . . .  
(Captain, art thou sleeping there below?)"_

"What's that?" Loki asked, his voice also a thousand miles away, but if Mitchell replied, Loki did not hear him, because Loki was walking toward the river. He had removed his helmet and was carrying it in one hand, his head tilting backward slightly and his nostrils filling with a phantom scent of fog and sea water and tar and cordite. 

When he focused his eyes on the fog bank, it was to see a shadow resolve itself into a ship, not terribly large but graceful, with three masts and billowing sails, gliding up the river from the sea and trailing a phosphorescent glow of magic in its wake. On its sides were open gunports, through which the mouths of cannons could be seen. At its prow was a carved and gilded figure in the shape of the head of a doe. 

And then there were other ships, some beautiful creations of wood, with graceful masts and sails-- Loki could not see them all clearly, but one splendid vessel carried as its figurehead a royal-looking coat of arms supported by incongruous cupids, and the ship itself bristled with at least a hundred guns-- others fearsome ones of iron. They spread out upon the river, ghostly and glowing and yet somehow very real, and even in their terror and confusion the citizens stopped to gaze upon them. 

And when the jets reappeared out of the bank of magic and came howling overhead once again, the guns all roared together and the lead fighter broke apart, the fragments disappearing in a sparkling burst of enchantment. The remaining jets shot up into the sky in what seemed to be surprise and alarm, scattering and then attempting to regain formation.

And now, in addition to the drum, Loki could hear-- everyone could hear, even the humans looked up in amazement-- a humming, snarling drone, coming from the fog above them. Mitchell spoke again:

 _"Merlins,”_ and this made no sense, for surely Merlin was a sorcerer from a time before airplanes, and besides there was only one of him. Loki looked at Mitchell for an explanation and his friend repeated, "Rolls Royce Merlins. You never forget the sound." 

And now above them, from the fog, there were flights of tiny airplanes, four at a time in diamonds of their own, half the length of the SHIELD fighters but with nearly the same wingspan. Most of them possessed wings that bore a gradual, straight taper to a curved tip when viewed from below but others, the lighter-looking, more slender ones, had wings that formed a beautiful pointed ellipse. They were borne across the sky by means of propellers on their long and predatory noses, the undersides of their wings adorned with roundels comprised of a red dot encircled by outlines of white and blue. The sound of their engines thundered in Loki's chest. It felt like music.

Loki would have been amused by the expressions of wonder on the faces of the humans around him, had he not himself been so busy staring wide-eyed at the sky, as much in thrall to the magic raging through him as any minion. 

The jets that had escaped the barrage from the river had by now regrouped, and came screaming back. It had just seemed to occur to the humans around Loki that they probably should have fled by now when, from high above, the little aircraft began to heel over and fall upon the jets, still singing their deadly, beautiful song. 

The jets were obviously capable of a great deal more speed, but the smaller planes were both far more maneuverable and, of course, powered by magic. As the first flight of four jets began to climb to join the combat, they were met by two flights of the larger sort of the propellor-driven little planes, which heeled over and came diving down upon them. The bursts of machine-gun fire from each little craft flashed red and green, and suddenly one of the jets had lost half a wing. It slewed in the sky, mortally wounded as its very speed tore the damaged skin from its skeleton and the aircraft burst into flames. 

The burning shreds of the aircraft had only just begun to fly apart when the fog rising up from the river took it, and it vanished.

The smaller aircraft, humming triumph, broke left and right and the remaining jets thundered between them, at which the four trailing propellor craft-- Loki was slower than the Londoners, surely the humans had realized at once what impossible thing they were looking at, but it was only now he saw the shape of the canopy that enclosed the cockpit of the aircraft and, remembering pictures from his history book, thought: _Hurricane_ \-- the four trailing Hurricanes stood on their wingtips and came about so hard they arrived on the very heels of the three surviving jets before they could escape out of range, and the machine guns stuttered red into the double tails of their adversaries. One of the jets exploded, taking a Hurricane with it, but the other three little craft climbed above the fireball and escaped to altitude as the remaining two jets of the group fled.

Three down.

The second flight of jets was sticking to the apparent plan, was coming back along the river intent upon launching another attack upon Parliament, when diving straight toward them came-- they were also in the book, smooth bubble-shaped canopies, elliptical wings, _Spitfire_ \-- diving toward them came two flights of Spitfires, eight of them, firing directly into the jets from above, pulled up hard and leveled out to follow the course of the river until they could climb above the level of the buildings on both sides and begin the sweeping turns that would bring them back into the fray. 

Two of the jets had been damaged by the guns of the Spitfires. One crashed into the side of one of the great grey ships of iron, while the other flew directly into the broadside of the three-masted ship with the coat of arms figurehead and disintegrated.

Loki, head swimming more from the effort of keeping track of the action than the effects of the flood of magic, looked around for the rest of the attackers. There had been twelve jets to begin with. Seven remained, formed into one diamond-shaped flight and another partial grouping made up of the final three. Showing more determination than good sense, the group of four made another great turn and came back to the attack, only to be shredded by Hurricanes from above and cannons from the river below. 

The three surviving jet pilots should by now have realized they were dealing with something more dangerous than determined vintage aircraft. Instead, they split up, apparently hoping to either make themselves harder to trap, or to trap their adversaries in turn. 

One of the Spitfires found itself caught just off the surface of the river, flying into the teeth of one jet while the final two came up behind it. Somewhere behind Loki he could hear what sounded like the voices of children, who should surely have been in school, screaming encouragement to the Spitfire as its Merlin engine roared at full effort. One of the jets unleashed a missile at the fleeing little craft. 

The missiles carried by the jets were the sort that sought out the heat of the target's engine. 

The Spitfire was, of course, a spectre. 

Spectres emit no heat. 

The little fighter stood on its tail as it pulled sharply upward. The missile continued on its path to converge with and blow up the single jet. Meanwhile, the Spitfire executed a half-loop and then, at the top, twisted round so that it was right-side-up and facing in the opposite direction. It then came diving back down, guns blazing, into the faces of the two remaining jets. 

At this point the last two jet pilots seemed to belatedly lose their nerve, especially when the sky above them seemed to be dark with the little fighters, heeling over one after the other to pounce. The final two jets made a run for the fog bank. 

There was a muted flash within the grey mass, and Loki was confident those two jets would never again be seen by mortal eyes. 

The Spitfire that had confronted the final jets pulled up again, executing a twisting roll that looked like exultation. Then it joined one of the formations and the little planes, four by four, made a great sweeping half-circle over the river and the city before disappearing once again into the fog bank. The throbbing song of the Merlins gradually faded.

On the river, the ship with the doe's head on its prow fired a rolling broadside that seemed to be in salute, even as the ship and its fellows became brighter, then translucent, and were enveloped in the fog, which then began to dissipate as though blown to shreds by the wind. 

The rattle of the snare drum faded. When the fog had dispersed, the ships, like the aircraft, were gone. 

Loki sat down abruptly on the pavement, head ringing, chest hollow as it tried to adjust to the sudden absence of magic within it. He folded his arms over his knees and leaned forward a little. An arm was thrown around his shoulders and he became aware of Mitchell beside him, and Annie's cool hand on the back of his neck.

"That was _amazing,_ " Mitchell said. "I wish George could have seen it." 

Loki pushed his hands back through his sweaty hair. "So do I."

There were black-trousered legs before him. Loki looked up in puzzlement, into the face of the middle-aged policeman from earlier. 

"May I help you?" Loki asked politely. 

"I think you already have," the police officer replied. "That was you, wasn't it?"

"It was not," Loki replied, too tired for coyness or teasing. "I was merely the... the receiver. Your realm does not take kindly to being conquered." The police officer gave him a very strange look, which Loki answered with an exhausted smile. 

The officer might have said more, except that his radio began to make garbled noises. Loki could not make them out, but the officer cursed. 

"What the hell is going on-- ?"

"What is it?" Loki found the wit to demand. The officer looked down at him, considered for perhaps a second, and then told him:

"I'm hearing reports of a giant airship approaching from the north. It's over Bedfordshire right now. Would you happen to know anything about that?"

Loki started to rise, wobbled, and found himself being helped up by Thor, Mitchell, and the police officer. Pretending not to notice the extra support from three directions, he replied, 

"Sadly, yes. How would we go about finding Bedfordshire?"

The policeman pointed. "Straight out that way. Look for the-- "

"-- giant airship?" Loki guessed. 

"Exactly."

"We should make haste," Loki suggested to Thor, who nodded. Loki, who actually felt quite well now that he had adjusted to the outpouring of magic, pulled free as Thor turned to his companions. 

"Loki and I will go ahead and confront the helicarrier. Mitchell, call upon Tony Stark's helicopter pilot and ask him to convey the rest of you after us. Brother, I hope you do not mind-- ?"

"Oh, no," Loki replied, less grumpily than he sounded. "I never mind being carried like a schoolbag, in a good cause."

"I'm coming with you," Annie announced. 

"Annie-- " Thor began. 

"Try to stop me," Annie warned. 

"Save your effort," Loki advised his brother, smiled at the bewildered policeman who, of course, had no idea who the brothers were talking to, and picked up his helmet-- prone to causing misunderstandings or not, it had been given him by Tony, and he would not lose it. Then he permitted Thor to tuck him under his arm, rather like a rugby ball.

A moment later there was a flash from Mjolnir, and they were rising into the air like a Spitfire. London became small under their feet, and then was gone.


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Notes:** In which things go sideways at a high rate of knots, but Loki still manages to have the _BEST DAY EVER_. 
> 
> **Warnings:** For seriously messed-up local geographies. Once again I ask the indulgence of anyone actually familiar with the locations in which these battles occur, and that you just go with it.

The initial assault on the SHIELD building had been relatively straightforward, even with the requirement to, as much as possible, leave the human guards unharmed. Mystique still considered this to be needless sentimentality, but Magneto was able to recognize the necessity, at least for now, of maintaining the alliance with Xavier and his group. Hydra, and their alien allies the Dire Wraiths, were still at large, and nothing would be gained for Magneto's cause by getting ahead of themselves now. 

As little as Magneto cared about the _sapiens_ , getting carried away with this little group of them would only serve as an unhelpful distraction-- might, indeed, inadvertently help Hydra accomplish its goals. While remaining scornful of what he thought of as Xavier's "good mutant" stance, Magneto could still concede that, at the moment, discretion was indeed necessary. 

Mystique, despite her contempt for this enforced caution, still had too much respect for Magneto to argue the matter with him. Nor had she the opportunity to air her opinions before the so-called X-Men: Storm, representing Xavier at the front, was wise enough to, as much as possible, keep her group separated from Magneto's. 

Magneto had always thought it a shame that Storm wasted her considerable talents on Xavier's misguided efforts to work with the ill-disposed and short-sighted _sapiens_ \-- a species with far less to be hubristic about than they seemed to think. However, he respected her loyalty to Xavier, despite the foolishness of their cause.

He also rather admired the skill with which she had reassured the SHIELD foot soldiers after the capture of the building, although their current docility was as much a result of Xavier's skills at mind control as Storm's persuasiveness. For all his protests of respect for the dignity of the pitiful _sapiens_ , in practice Magneto had never noticed Charles having many qualms about exploiting their weaknesses of mind or body for his own ends. Charles, of course, would hold that his use of mind control was for some "greater good," as doubtless it was, but Magneto permitted himself a little amusement at the unacknowledged hypocrisy. 

No matter: for the moment, a tense calm prevailed. Unlike New York and London, this particular SHIELD building was located well away from the city core, on spacious and very private grounds of its own. It was possible the battle for control of the headquarters had gone quite unnoticed by the local authorities. It was equally possible the activity was simply being ignored, or perhaps mistaken for a particularly violent training exercise. 

Whatever the reason, the lull had given Xavier a chance to shepherd the SHIELD... thralls... to confinement in relative safety deep in the bowels of the building, in a bunker originally intended to withstand nuclear assault. Now, they awaited Hydra's response, a situation as distasteful to Xavier as to Magneto. There was far more strength in striking first, but the nature of the situation called for this enforced passivity. 

"What news have we from the others?" Magneto asked Xavier, as he joined his old compatriot in their makeshift command room. 

"All is quiet in New York," Charles replied."Fury has re-established his control, though I would not expect that to last long without challenge. On the other hand, it appears the group in London has had a lively time of it."

"Oh?" Magneto asked, only mildly curious. Everything he knew about the so-called God of Thunder suggested any attack with which he was involved would be "a lively time." There was definitely nothing subtle about the man. 

"Yes," Xavier replied, looking amused. "I understand there was an attack of some sort on the city, which was repelled by-- as far as I can tell-- the shades of Francis Drake and Hugh Dowding. It seems Thor's younger brother also has a flair for the dramatic." 

"He would almost have to, unless he is of a particularly retiring disposition and prefers never to be noticed at all," Magneto shrugged, and then turned as Storm walked in, her step measured but her bearing tense. "Yes?" he addressed her. Storm glanced at Xavier first, but she had more sense than to show discourtesy to Magneto, and framed her report as if in response to his prompt:

"Jean-- " who had relieved Xavier at the controls of Cerebro-- "has just reported a large airborne force approaching from the west. The crews are both human and Dire Wraith."

"Airborne?" Magneto asked, almost lazily. "That should be straightforward."

Storm's eyebrows arched. "It would be," she replied with cool politeness, "if the craft we've identified were constructed out of materials with any metallic properties whatsoever. It appears Dire Wraith technology doesn't involve traditional metals." She turned to Xavier. "We're preparing to repel their assault, but it looks very much like we'll be facing the brunt of Hydra's power before they turn their attention to the other locations."

Magneto's lip curled. "I suppose now we shall see what our so-called 'alliance' means to the Avengers."

~oOo~

It very quickly became evident that no assistance was to be forthcoming from the Avengers or the other superheroes. The logic of spreading the Hydra attack across the globe was now more than evident: with the defensive forces spread thin across multiple locations, it was all but impossible for them to offer reinforcements to one another. 

The situation was bad enough even before their discovery that Dire Wraith magic was at least a match for most mutant powers. If the Wraiths seemed unable to quite penetrate their defenses, then the mutants were unable to drive them away to more than a token, encircling distance. There had been a brief, pitched battle between the Wraith forces and what appeared to be Russian troops sent to intercept the invaders-- a very brief battle, after which the Wraiths seemed to have settled down to wait out the mutant force. 

Mystique knew well enough that it was not really the fault of the Avengers that they were unable to teleport across oceans and come to the mutants' assistance. And certainly, when Xavier was finally persuaded to release the captive SHIELD soldiers to join the fray, those humans had offered a game-- if doomed-- resistance. But knowing the main Hydra/Wraith force could just as easily have targeted London or New York first did very little to moderate Mystique's ferocious sense of ill-use at the hands of the human heroes. 

"Now what?" she asked Xavier, who she blamed entirely for this stupid, stupid predicament. This was what happened when mutants became involved in matters that affected the _sapiens_ : they were turned into sacrificial offerings while the humans thought only of their own safety. 

Charles raised an eyebrow, and Mystique, to her intense annoyance, realized he had heard her thoughts. 

"You do realize, don't you my dear, that a great many Russian humans are now in exactly the same peril we are?" he asked. "And not a few of them have already died of it?"

Mystique was about to tell him exactly how much she cared about the peril of any humans, Russian or otherwise, when her attention was distracted by a sudden boiling of clouds in a sky already dark with Storm's defiant but hopeless thunderheads. 

"Is that you?" Wolverine asked Storm, looking up in exhausted near-interest.

"No," Storm replied, and seemed to be forming words to say something else when, from the black clouds, came what could be best described as a tornado of light instead of wind. There was a blinding flash, which resolved itself into-- 

Soldiers-- divisions of them, in archaic armour, carrying spears and other apparently-primitive weapons, which somehow still looked quite capable of dealing with the Wraith menace. 

Monsters-- even her own status as a mutant did not leave Mystique with any better term to describe these beings, enormous and blue and nearly naked, with what seemed to be scars or perhaps tribal markings on their heads and torsos. 

And from the midst of the two armies, pacing calmly toward the mutants, came two figures. One was a helmeted and armoured, one-eyed man, bearing a spear and riding an enormous black horse. It spoke to her current state of astonishment that it took Mystique a moment to even notice that the horse appeared to have eight legs.

Walking beside the man on horseback, fully a head taller, was one of the blue monsters, this one with great curled rams' horns arching around the sides of his head. It was impossible for the moment to tell whether they were attached to a helmet or growing out of his skull. He, too, carried a spear, which should have looked inadequate to the task of standing up to the massed enemies... and yet somehow did not. 

Magneto and Xavier came forward to greet the newcomers, which was accomplished by means of a short nod from the mounted man and a curt salute from the monster. 

"I am Odin Allfather," the mounted man said calmly, as the eight-legged horse snorted and sidled beneath him, "and this is Thrym Nalson, of Jotunheim. You were promised our assistance."

All of a sudden, the odds on the Wraiths began to look a little longer.

~oOo~

Under ordinary circumstances, one would expect the sight of Thor descending majestically from the sky-- even with his younger brother tucked ignominiously under his arm like a duffle bag-- to attract considerable notice.

On this occasion, the humans on the ground being understandably preoccupied with the approach of the still-distant, but large and threatening airship, he managed to land almost unnoticed. Thor touched down, and Annie appeared next to him, right behind two women and a man dressed identically in unattractive long shorts and dark green t-shirts embellished with the puzzling legend: _ZSL Whipsnade_. Loki hastily shook off his brother's clasp and straightened his clothing before anyone had time to take note of how he had arrived.

Although Loki had, naturally, been alert for any sight of the helicarrier during their flight, he had also noticed their passage over green spaces, roads crowded with cars that seemed to be, quite sensibly, fleeing south, and-- puzzlingly-- what appeared to be a giant figure of chalk, depicting a lion, in the earth below them. He wished Annie had been visible to ask what it meant, and also that he had a communication device with him to relay intelligence of the chalk lion to Mitchell, for the enlightenment of the helicopter pilot. 

However, on second thoughts, it appeared likely the helicarrier itself would be the only landmark needed.

Thor laid a hand on the green-shirted shoulder of the man in the group of three. The man started, spun around, and then gaped up at Thor, who smiled reassuringly down at him.

"You should get under cover," he advised. Loki thought the human could be forgiven for looking skeptical about the prospects of anything nearby providing sufficient "cover" to protect them from a warship like the helicarrier. The man looked from Thor to Loki, and then back to Thor with an expression of both recognition and anxiety. 

"What is that thing?" the man countered. "What does it want?"

Ignoring the first question, Thor replied, "I believe it is bound for London, but my brother and I are intent upon stopping it before it gets there."

The man's face went a sickly pale green that clashed badly with the darker shade of his shirt. 

"You're not planning to _fight_ it. You can't do that _here_ ," he protested. "We're evacuating our visitors as fast as we can, but the _animals_ \-- "

"What animals?" Thor demanded. The man looked at him as though he was an idiot. 

"This is the largest zoo in the UK. You can't fight that thing here, the _animals_ \-- "

"What does he mean?" Loki asked Annie, out of the side of his mouth, when it became apparent the man was going to run on in this vein for some time.

"It looks like we're at Whipsnade Zoo. It's part of the Zoological Society of London-- yes, I know, we're not terribly near London, but it's a fact," Annie forestalled Loki's inevitable protest. This at least explained the writing on the green t-shirts. Annie went on, "Most of the animals at London Zoo are smaller, the big ones are almost all here. A lot of them are endangered species."

"Considerably more endangered at the moment, I should think," Loki remarked under his breath. "At least these particular individuals."

The man was still trying to persuade Thor to-- what? Ask the helicarrier to make an appointment to meet them at some more convenient location?-- when a woman in the same ugly, practical uniform came running up, closely followed by another very agitated woman more normally dressed in trousers and cardigan. 

"John," the uniformed woman interrupted her colleague, "we've got most of the visitors off the grounds, but Mrs. Kingston here says some of her school group is still missing. Apparently, two chaperones and six children went off to-- "

 _"Loki?"_ demanded the woman in the cardigan. Loki, who had been paying more attention to the zoo staff up to this point, was astonished to recognize the headmistress of his very own school. The woman looked just as surprised as he was. "Loki, is that you?"

Considering how long it had been since he had been at work, as well as the fact that he was not exactly dressed for mopping floors-- to say nothing of the horned, supervillainous helmet he had just put on his head rather than continuing to carry it-- Loki found himself absurdly gratified that she had recognized him so quickly. 

And then he directed his attention back to the crucial matter under discussion:

"You say some of the children are missing?" he demanded. 

"Yes. A small group went along ahead to see the white rhinos, and they're still unaccounted for." The headmistress turned to the zoo staff. "It won't take me a minute, I'll just go look--"

"No," Loki said hastily. "You stay with the rest of the children." Who could be up to almost anything right now, human children being as prone to inappropriate mischief as... well, as certain sorcerers Loki might mention. He turned on the green-shirted humans and demanded generally, "And where might I find these rhinoceroses?"

The man named John, who had been acting as spokesman, pointed toward a stand of trees. "Down that path, through the wood."

"Thank you," Loki said briefly, and turned to Thor. "Brother, I will be as quick as I can."

"Go," Thor replied with a nod, and turned his attention back to the approaching helicarrier. He rose into the air as Loki set off down the path at a dead run. Despite the weight of his costume, his long legs, combined with a considerable dose of adrenaline, ensured Loki made excellent time. Annie started to run after him but quickly found it easier to simply catch hold of his leather coat and let herself fly along in his wake.

The stand of woods through which the path wound served to obscure sight and muffle sound thoroughly enough that the missing group seemed to have no idea, yet, that there was any danger. The two adults, a man and a woman, were just as intent upon the creatures beyond the fence as were the children. 

Whoever the adults were, Loki did not recognize them. They must be volunteers of some sort, possibly parents or other relatives of the children. They were assuredly not employees of the school, at least not of any great experience, because they had entirely failed to notice the two little boys who had crept away from the rest of the group and scrambled under the outer fence that was intended to keep visitors from getting too close to the inner one that actually enclosed the animals. 

Loki, despite being somewhat out of practice after such a long time away from the school environment, cast an experienced and unsurprised eye over the familiar figures of the red-haired, freckled little boy, as well as his brown-skinned companion. In Loki's experience, it was nearly always these two. Truly, they were worse than Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. Not for the first time, Loki reflected that, if they had been born in Asgard nine hundred years ago, his own childhood might have been a considerably different, and possibly far more enjoyable, experience.

Banishing the thought, he now called out in a tone of command, "Patrick! Trevor! Come away from there immediately!"

The boys started guiltily, turned, gaped at the tall, horned being striding toward them-- and then, with identical gap-toothed smiles, shouted, _"Loki!_ " with exactly the same expressions of surprised pleasure, scrambled back over the outer fence, and rushed at him. 

Really, it was heartwarming. Loki intended to be very moved, as soon as the deadly peril had been dealt with and he had a moment. He did allow himself to wonder whether reactions like this from the children made it any more likely he would be able to get his job back, once he explained the circumstances of his most recent disappearance. 

The rest of the children turned at the shouts from Patrick and Trevor, as did the adults-- who, perhaps understandably, were a great deal less excited and far more alarmed than the children at the sight of him. It had to be the helmet, Loki decided. He was definitely never wearing this helmet in public ever again. 

"Who are you?" demanded the woman, attempting to forestall the four remaining children while the man made a rush forward to retrieve Patrick and Trevor-- the former had his arms wrapped around Loki's waist, while the latter gripped Loki's left hand in both of his. Annie caught Loki's eye and made a sentimental face that, despite the gravity of the situation, nearly made him giggle. The woman persisted, "How do the children know you?" 

"I am one of the school custodians," Loki replied, with an expression of transparent honesty-- and also a consciousness of the inadequacy of the explanation. Annie frankly burst out laughing. 

"Are you a superhero now?" Patrick demanded, still clinging. 

"No," Loki replied. "I am merely trying on a Halloween costume." Normally, Loki made a policy of telling the truth to children-- particularly when the truth was silly-- but he was in a hurry, and "magical consultant" was a difficult concept to explain especially if one did not quite understand all it entailed oneself, and if he claimed to indeed be a superhero he would then be compelled to explain why he did not, as yet, have an action figure in his image. Under the circumstances, surely a small lie could be forgiven.

"But it's August!" Trevor protested, which was indeed a reasonable argument. 

"I like to plan ahead," Loki informed him, and then addressed the chaperones: "We need to get these children out of here. Now." 

The adults had opened their mouths, doubtless to ask a great many unnecessary and probably very silly questions when, from the direction of the woods through which Loki had run, came the sound of explosions. The helicarrier loomed above the trees, and Loki could see Thor and a small blazing shape that was probably the Human Torch flying around it and harassing it as best they could. 

In a purely instinctive-- and purely, hopelessly, ridiculous-- gesture, Loki pushed Patrick and Trevor behind himself and stepped between the rest of the children and the threat. Then, since they seemed to be cut off, he looked around to see what sort of cover might be available. 

Nothing immediately presented itself, the enclosure behind them being open and grassy and...

A thought struck Loki-- mostly, it verbalized itself as "better than nothing"-- and he cast a bolt of magic at the fence behind them. It swung open in a makeshift gate, and Loki attempted to shoo his human charges through it ahead of him. 

"Loki? What are we doing?" Annie asked, in a rising tone of alarm.

"The only thing I can think of at the moment," Loki replied. "You should probably find Mitchell and ensure he and Thor's friends understand the situation when they arrive-- although I admit, it is probably self-explanatory."

Without argument, Annie vanished.

"Who are you talking to?" demanded the man. And then-- "Are you mad?" he cried, as Loki continued to insist he enter the enclosure. Loki gave him a magical shove after the others, stepped inside himself, and sealed the fence behind them-- just as the inhabitants of the paddock, alarmed by the noise and confusion and apparently not yet sure where safety might lie, came cantering toward them. 

There were eight of them: six adults, an adolescent, and a small calf, and they were not white, but grey. Loki was unsurprised by this since he-- and doubtless all the children-- knew the name "white" rhinoceros was not a reference to the colour of the animal, but a corruption of the word "weit," which derived from either Dutch or Afrikaans (Loki had seen both languages cited in the various sources he had looked at) and referred to the wide, squared upper lip of this largely grazing animal. 

Largely grazing _large_ animal: even knowing in advance that a rhinoceros was a very big creature, it was still surprising to realize just _how_ large they were when seen close-to. 

Close-to and getting closer, in fact: apparently having spotted the movement of the group, the rhinoceroses accelerated into a gallop, heading directly toward them. 

Hoping Thor and the Human Torch could keep the helicarrier occupied for a few minutes longer, Loki stepped in front of his companions and held up his right hand. He was perfectly capable of casting a jolt of magic that would knock all the animals down, but nothing could have been farther from his mind. The magic he cast was entirely more benign.

The rhinoceroses slowed to a trot, and then to a ponderous walk. The big female in the lead, who was accompanied closely by the smallest calf, lowered her head as she came toward him, in a gesture that perhaps struck the rest of the group behind Loki as threatening. 

It was not, and Loki knew it even before he reached out with both mind and magic, in an effort to contact the creature. He had, in the past, communicated with an entire colony of ants, in an effort to persuade them to leave the school grounds for a safer home. Making magical contact with a single, far more complex being like this rhinoceros was, comparatively speaking, what the humans might refer to as "a piece of cake." 

That did not, of course, explain why Loki's chest suddenly felt much the same as it had when it was filled with magic.

The lead rhinoceros, the mother, advanced solemnly toward Loki, becoming... curiously blurry... in his vision for a moment. He blinked a time or two, took a careful deep breath past a suddenly constricted throat… and then she came into focus again just as her muzzle brushed against the palm of his outstretched hand. Her breath was warm and moist against his skin. Loki rubbed her "weit," square, upper lip, then ran his fingers up the heavy, rough hide of her face, and let his hand encircle the base of her foremost horn, a wickedly curved, scimitar-like weapon as long as his own lower leg. Her calf peered up at Loki from her side. Loki rubbed the skin at the base of her horn and held out the thought toward her: _Protect these of mine, and I will protect yours._

Loki had a momentary a sense of an alien intelligence nuzzling thoughtfully into the corners of his brain. This was not like the invasion by Professor X: he welcomed it in, and he did not rush it. It considered, ruminated, and then...

_Agreed._

The mother rhinoceros withdrew her muzzle and walked past Loki. She circled around the little group of children and adults, quite obviously herding them toward the rest of her family. Unsurprisingly, the children-- still young enough to view the rhinoceros simply as someone's mother, rather than as a being large enough to mash them all underfoot-- accepted the gesture with considerably more aplomb than the adults. 

"You will be all right," Loki assured them, feeling considerably more confidence in the rhinoceros than he did in himself at the moment, and hoping the feeling was not obvious. 

And then the humans were completely surrounded by armoured grey hides, and Loki was outside the fence and running back through the woods, toward the helicarrier. 

~oOo~

The helicopter was just preparing to set down in the deserted car park when Annie blinked into the seat next to Mitchell, and immediately launched into an explanation of what was happening in the rhino enclosure. 

Sif was quite fond of Loki's friend Annie, but she was particularly glad to see, and especially to listen to, the bubbly ghost at this moment. Sif and the Warriors Three had been good friends for most of their lives, they knew each other extremely well, and Fandral, who was sharp, was beginning to look at her quite strangely. It was both obvious that he knew there was something wrong, and only a matter of time before he realized Sif was not worried about the upcoming battle, but merely very angry at Hogun. 

It would not be the first time hot-tempered Sif and abrupt Hogun had clashed, despite their longstanding close friendship. However, given the sharp exchange between Hogun and Loki, just before they got out of the helicopter in London, Sif was a little worried that Fandral might put two and two together and realize what had caused the current argument. 

They had agreed, all of them, to give Loki another chance. Thor had not asked it of them in so many words, but after his first visit to Loki's new home in Bristol, he had been terribly shaken.

He was not the only one. 

Before that visit, but after Loki's fall, Thor had often spoken wistfully of his brother, encouraging his friends to recall their youth together with a distinctly rosy tint. Thor had spoken as though Loki had been their valued friend, had been a vital member of the group. Sif and the Warriors had allowed him to do so because, well... Loki was dead. Of course he was dead. Surely there was no harm in letting Thor pretend to remember good times that had never happened, at least until he was ready to admit the mutual trust and friendship he spoke of had never existed except in his own mind-- and had not even existed in his mind until after Loki's suicide. It was heartbreaking, but there could be no harm in letting him grieve in his own way.

And then Heimdall found Loki, and Thor had gone to confront him, and Sif had gone to protect Thor. And neither she nor Thor had ever been able to think of their youth in quite the same way since. For Thor, the crucial thing seemed to have been listening to Loki's painfully raw versions of those "fond" childhood memories. For Sif, it had been his expression of stark terror when she made her vicious jest about harming his friends-- she had found it shocking, just how easily he had been able to believe she would track him down on purpose just to do such a pointlessly cruel thing. She had never before given much thought to how she and her friends appeared to Loki, and the revelation was more than uncomfortable.

After that visit, Thor's affectionate, fantasy reminiscences had abruptly stopped. For several weeks he had hardly uttered his brother's name before the Warriors Three. Sif did not blame Thor for that-- he probably felt as ashamed when he remembered those days as his brother clearly did when he thought of his own brief reign as king of Asgard. He might have felt as ashamed as Sif did, when she looked at her inky hair and remembered how it once had been golden.

Sif had let Thor alone to come to terms with his feelings of guilt, but she had dealt with her own by twisting arms, and arguing, and compelling the Warriors to agree to give Loki another chance. And they had agreed readily enough-- it was easy, with Loki banished and so little likelihood their paths would ever cross again. 

And then their paths had, of course, done exactly that. The easy promises to speak no ill of Thor's lost brother had suddenly become far more complicated, and each of them had to find his own way to keep his word-- or not.

It was the Vanaheim trip that seemed to have settled Volstagg-- not so much the painful excavation of old memories as, strangely, the library session after Loki's attempt to spy upon the so-called Jotun king. Volstagg had attempted to speak of it later to Sif and had been unable to articulate exactly what had affected him, but… It seemed as if seeing Loki huddled over the library books, sharing incomprehensible private jokes with his Midgardian friends, had suddenly made him seem _real_ to Volstagg in a way he had somehow never been before. As if, suddenly, he was not simply Thor's tagalong brother, who was only a nuisance and nothing else, but a completely separate, individual being, capable of both feeling and inspiring affection in others. 

Volstagg, once he came around, had been glad of this opportunity to try again. Fandral had been more openly resistant, and that may have been because Fandral, though he had always _disliked_ Loki as much as any of them, had actually seemed to _distrust_ him a little less-- less at least than did Hogun and Sif, although it might have been simply that he considered Loki of too little importance to even properly mistrust. Even so, he had taken Loki's treachery very personally. 

However, Fandral was nearly as sentimental in his own way as was Volstagg, and in the face of Thor's transparently genuine change of heart he was simply unable to argue against it. Fandral had said that Thor should love his brother, whether his friends did or not, and as grudging as the statement might have sounded, the fact was that he meant every word. He and Loki would probably never be friends, but Fandral was at least capable of banishing the worst of his distaste and suspicion, as long as Loki did nothing to earn them again.

So: Volstagg and Fandral would not cause further trouble. 

Hogun, however… 

Hogun, grim and unyielding, was another matter entirely. When he had spoken up earlier, expressing his continuing reservations about Loki's intentions, Sif had not known whether to kick him in the ankle or push him out of the aircraft. She still was not sure which had been worse: Thor's stricken look, or Loki's weary one. 

And, of course, she had confronted him about it-- if you could call it a "confrontation" when both of them were running down flights of stairs to the sixth storey of SHIELD headquarters, bound to fetch Annie and Mitchell from the computer control room, pausing occasionally to fight black-uniformed guards who appeared from one floor or another. 

_"Do not attempt to come between Thor and his brother, Hogun. We have been friends for too long for something like this to cause us to lose each other."_

_"Yes, we have been friends for a long time. And in all that time, in all those centuries, when did Thor ever look to his brother, except when he needed something of him? And after all those years of grudging sufferance, we are expected to believe in this fierce and devoted love? It cannot be real. It cannot last." _

Sif felt sure Hogun thought he was expressing his intention to remain loyal to Thor, to be there as a support when his brother betrayed him again, but she could not quite banish the uncomfortable thought that, when he put it like this, it sounded more like he expected the betrayal to be the other way around. Either he believed Loki had recaptured Thor's affection by means of some trick or enchantment, or else he had not quite thought through what he was saying about Thor-- or Thor's capacity to betray someone who apparently trusted _him._

Sif, for her part, did not believe any such thing, but it was an unpleasant idea to have rattling around in one's mind. It did not get any more pleasant when she actually stopped to consider that, if one reviewed the history of their relationship, the brother who had in fact demonstrated the obstinate, unrewarded fidelity was not actually Thor at all. 

All things considered, Sif was greatly relieved when Mitchell suddenly interrupted her thoughts with a peal of disbelieving laughter and addressed Annie:

"The helicarrier is threatening little kids _from his school?_ And _rhinos?_ At the _same time?"_

"That’s what I just said," Annie told him. 

Mitchell, his face bright with amusement, looked around at the others. "Guys, if you really want in on the action, I think you better get going. Otherwise, Loki's apt to take that thing apart with his bare hands before you ever get there."

And, just at that, the helicopter landed. 

~oOo~

"Brother, there is no honour in hiding like this," Thor grumbled from somewhere behind Loki, who was himself ducked behind a flourishing clump of weeds beside a pit filled, by the smell of it, with animal excrement. 

"Bother honour," Loki replied, restraining himself from stating his position in more vulgar terms. "Now be quiet, because I need to concentrate." He cast another illusion, a vision of armoured vehicles appearing over the hill on the other side of the downs, taking care to ensure the perspective was convincing. Thor shifted impatiently and Loki resisted the urge to try to kick him. 

As he had said back in London a short time before, Loki knew perfectly well Thor could, with sufficient use of lightning, bring down the helicarrier. After what he had done to the Red Skull's hideout, no one could have much doubt of that. However, the humans had a term called "collateral damage," which referred to destruction of property, dwellings, rhinoceroses and small children which occurred incidentally to the central purpose of stopping evil. Loki had seen, on the television, reports of battles between the Avengers and various evil-doers in which fully as much damage was done by the heroes as by those with whom they fought. 

Loki was perfectly willing to concede he was insufficiently dedicated to the principle of foiling villainy whenever and however it must be done. He did not claim to be a superhero-- as anyone would believe who beheld his helmet. And he did understand that the Avengers differed from their foes in that they did not deliberately _set out_ to destroy houses and roads and… and Jotunheim, for instance. 

All the same, there certainly seemed no harm in doing one's best to draw the helicarrier away from the zoo, and out across the great sloping downs, before Thor actually attacked it. The zoo was now behind them, though still near enough to the range of the helicarrier's weapons that Loki hoped its inhabitants had the sense to remain in hiding. (He had managed to find Mrs. Kingston and tell her the missing members of her party were as safe as anyone could be, although he hoped to retrieve the children before the headmistress had the opportunity to discover exactly where they sheltered.)

So far, Loki's plan seemed to be working: his illusions appeared to have convinced the helicarrier's lookouts that military intervention was imminent, and the vessel was moving as though to confront it. Loki just hoped they could act in a decisive fashion before the real military forces decided to stop waiting for Thor and got involved themselves, causing collateral damage of their own. 

A few minutes later even Loki was willing to concede the helicarrier had probably been drawn as far away as was practical. He and Thor, concealed from above by a glamour, had been joined by Annie, Mitchell, Sif and the Warriors Three. The Human Torch, in need of a breather anyway, had also joined them in concealment and was rattling on to a sympathetic Mitchell about the probability of Mr. Fantastic and the Thing being even now prisoners on the airship. Loki sincerely hoped they would not be harmed in the action to come, but one could not prepare for every eventuality and he still felt the first priority should be avoiding harm to non-combatants. 

Admittedly, he would have felt less philosophical if George, for instance, had been imprisoned along with the two Fantastics, but that was neither here not there. 

"Now," he interrupted his own thoughts to say aloud. Thor, who had already been more than patient with Loki's maneuverings, stepped forth, Mjolnir raised high. 

The lightning strikes that followed a few seconds later were impressive even by Thor's normally awe-inspiring standards. The helicarrier wobbled in the air as the electrical overload attacked its anti-gravity system. Loki spared himself a moment to wonder what Nick Fury might make of this evidence of what Thor really could do, should he ever turn rogue.

And then he reminded himself that Nick Fury would surely know a stupid thought when it occurred to him, and concentrated on the carrier. His role as an illusionist complete, he was now responsible to use magical fields to try and direct the helicarrier's crash, to keep it in the uninhabited area. After previously holding up the SHIELD building, he would normally have been too drained for such an effort so soon after, but whatever had used him as a conduit to unleash the defensive forces in London had left his magic replenished, as though it knew he would be in need of it. 

The end came quickly when it did: the helicarrier staggered in a nose-down attitude, like a sinking ship on the sea, and then glided out of control into the chalky slope of the downs, where it plowed a furrow like a strip-mining operation before coming to its ungainly halt. 

Unlike the Red Skull's hideout, of course, the helicarrier was not composed of flammable materials. Its massive hull also seemed to cushion the crash and prevented its weapons systems from exploding on impact, which probably saved the entire county. 

In effect, Loki realized, they had just transformed the helicarrier from a warship into a fortress. 

And as a mixture of Hydra and Dire Wraith troops began to appear on what he could only view as makeshift battlements, he spared himself a moment to wonder exactly how much of an improvement this was over the previous situation.


	30. Chapter 30

"I think they've realized it's an illusion," Fandral remarked, craning his neck to peer at the wrecked helicarrier and its defenders. There was no sign of anyone emerging.

"Apparently," Loki replied sourly. The soldiers creeping across the open downs abruptly vanished as Loki called back the spell. "Have you any better ideas?"

"If they will not come out, the only solution seems to be to go in after them," Fandral shrugged. 

Loki rubbed his forehead, and Mitchell muttered, "Oh, that will go well. We might as well be storming a castle-- and fair warning, if I hear anyone yell _Fetchez la vache_ , you won't see me for dust."

"I have no idea what you just said," Fandral announced, glancing at Mitchell with an expression of friendly amusement. He still perhaps had no love for Loki, but his efforts to befriend Loki's housemates now seemed perfectly sincere. Loki decided to give him credit for having at least that much sense. 

"Tony Stark could explain it to you," Mitchell replied shortly, determinedly unwooed, and turned to Loki. "Now what?"

Loki turned, in turn, to Thor. "You have called for help, yes?" 

"I have," Thor agreed. "Heimdall will get word to Father or to Tyr to send troops, however-- "

"However, moving soldiers, even by Bifrost, takes time and organization," Loki completed the thought. He glanced at Mitchell and Annie, then looked back at his brother, not very hopefully. "Should we wait for them?"

"Of course not," Thor replied, which was exactly what Loki expected him to say. Loki sighed, and Thor glared at him. "You are the one who is so concerned about the safety of your small friends. And the zoo. If we have the helicarrier crew at any disadvantage, we must press it now. If we give them a chance to repair the damage to their vessel, it will only make our task harder. Surely you see that."

"Yes, of course," Loki agreed reluctantly, and glanced at Sif and the Warriors with a twinge of apprehension. He had the most uncomfortable feeling of having gone back in time. 

And then Thor patted him on the shoulder-- not a painful thump, just a friendly pat-- and smiled generally at the others. "Surely if we all work together, we will be hard to defeat."

"I hope so," Johnny Storm spoke up. "Because if I don't get my brother-in-law out of there in one piece, my sister will kill me before the Dire Wraiths do."

"Well, that should serve to focus our minds," Thor said cheerfully. 

~oOo~

Loki, Annie and Mitchell took the devious part of the mission. It was only common sense, really: a vampire, a ghost, and a sneak were far more suited to such a task than Thor and his friends. 

Under cover of a separate glamour, Loki and his housemates crept around the crashed helicarrier, to the upslope side of the wreck. Then he removed the original glamour that had concealed Thor, his friends, and the Human Torch. 

Thor cast a lightning strike that boiled along the side of the stricken vessel, driving back the peering faces of the lookouts. There were screams, and a smell of roasting that Loki tried very hard not to think about. 

Johnny Storm instantly powered up his flames and shot into the air. He immediately drew fire from the helicarrier deck, enough of it to look like trigger-happy anxiety from the defenders. Loki began to suspect the Hydra troops, if not the Dire Wraiths, were nervous about what might be about to happen next. He was unfortunately only able to summon a small amount of sympathy for them. 

And then Loki dismissed the matter from his mind and concentrated on his sneaking. They reached the bow of the vessel, embedded in the chalk hillside, and climbed up the hull to the main deck. By this time, between Thor's lightning, the Human Torch's fireballs, and whatever Sif and the Warriors Three were doing, Loki's party hardly needed their glamour to avoid notice. Loki retained it anyway as they slipped past the defenders boiling out of the depths of the vessel like alarmed ants from a threatened nest. The elevators, by their very nature traps, were out of the question, so they hurried soft-footed down an open metal staircase, then ducked into the space behind it, out of the flow of foot traffic. 

Annie and Mitchell looked to Loki for direction, and he put a hand on each of their arms, asking them to remain still and quiet. 

Then he reached out with his mind, feeling his way tentatively along the corridors and through the walls of the ship, sorting through the many minds he encountered, trying to find the Thing and Mr. Fantastic. With so many creatures on board, and the two Fantastics unfamiliar to him, Loki found himself having to sift with great care. It took more time than he wanted it to, enough that he began to feel a sick fear he would not find them, that he was too late and they were dead already--

And then, with a surge of dizzy relief, down in the bowels of the ship-- probably hiding, based on their location-- he found two minds that felt hostile to the vessel and its crew. Loki probed a little harder, unable to actually read their thoughts but able to gather impressions, more like a diagnostic image than a listening device. They were close together, united in antagonism toward the ship, concerned for each other and trying to avoid notice…

"Found them," he whispered to Annie and Mitchell. Then he drew the glamour more tightly about them like a cloak of invisibility, and the three crept out of hiding and past the oblivious crew. If they jostled anyone, there were already so many people running about that no one seemed to notice. 

The helicarrier was very large, but from the inside it seemed to be not quite so large as Loki was expecting. Instead of following the staircases in an endless downward spiral from deck to deck, Loki counted-- 

"Seven," Mitchell whispered. "The _Titanic_ had seven decks as well." Loki spared a moment to cast a puzzled glance at his friend. Annie scowled, and Mitchell shrugged. "Just thought I'd mention it."

There would be time enough, later, to ask what in the Nine Realms Mitchell was talking about, assuming they survived and Loki remembered to do so. At the moment, it seemed wisest to concentrate on the matter at hand. Once again, they ducked behind the staircase to take stock of the situation. 

"I am not sensing anyone but humans down here," Loki reported, in spite of the glamour still speaking in a careful undertone. "Presumably the Dire Wraiths are all in positions of command, and are on the upper decks. The humans appear to make up what we might call the rank and file."

"If they were smart, they'd probably take that as a warning," Annie spoke up. 

"The same thought had occurred to me," Loki agreed. "Though I consider it highly unlikely any of them is indeed bright enough to have done so. With that said, it means there is no one here who can see you, Annie."

"So I can go scouting," Annie said, catching on immediately. 

"If you would," Loki requested politely. Annie grinned at him and disappeared through a wall. 

Mitchell and Loki continued to stay close together while Annie explored. Staying under the glamour did not technically necessitate huddling together like Ron and Harry under the Invisibility Cloak, but it took rather less concentration to keep the glamour on both when there was physical contact between them. Loki had no objection to making his job easier in any small way he could. 

Besides, creeping around like this, surrounded by enemies, was very slightly less frightening if Loki could feel Mitchell right at his shoulder. There were far fewer crew members down here, and they did not seem to be searching for anyone. Perhaps the crew believed the two Fantastics had fallen to their deaths during the battle, and meanwhile the two heroes planned to remain in concealment until they could think of a plan. 

Loki and Annie found the two fugitives at almost the same moment: she passed into the storage room where they were hiding, just as Loki pinpointed the location of the minds he was tracking. Loki glanced around to be sure the corridor was empty, then placed his hand on the latch of the door and felt it unlock. As he did, Annie came dashing back through the steel and bumped into him hard enough to make him stumble backward into Mitchell and lose control of the glamour. 

"Sorry!" Annie squeaked, clutching at him from one side while Mitchell propped him up from the other. Loki reflected that if only George had been present to join in, this moment would have served to symbolize his entire life since he landed in Midgard. He did not say this out loud. Instead, he just smiled as he steadied Annie, and then stepped through the door with Mitchell and Annie right behind him. 

The next thing Loki knew, something wrapped itself around his neck-- something thin and flexible and remarkably strong, like a serpent. Another serpent twisted around his body and arms, and yanked him into the storage room. Loki nearly incinerated both of the creatures with a blast of panicky magic--

\-- And then he remembered the peculiar superpower of Mr. Fantastic, and just barely restrained himself. 

"It's us!" Mitchell protested in a panicky hiss, tugging at the limb that had enveloped him as well. "Thor's brother and his friends, remember?"

A face on a long slender neck suddenly appeared before Loki's, frowning thoughtfully as it peered at him. In a lifetime that had lasted the equivalent of some nine hundred Midgardian years, Loki had seem many strange and disturbing things, but this was, he decided, quite high on the list. 

"Oh, I'm sorry," said the face, which belonged to Mr. Fantastic. Loki did not want to know where the rest of him was. "I didn't recognize you in that helmet."

Loki was definitely never wearing the helmet in public, ever again. The serpent about his neck loosened itself, and Loki-- now that he could breathe again-- managed to smile pleasantly at Mr. Fantastic. 

"We were hoping you would be interested in joining our attack on this vessel," he suggested.

"About time the backup got here," muttered a voice from just behind Mr. Fantastic. Loki looked at the Thing, who appeared considerably larger and more aggressive than his new friend the mother rhinoceros, and spared himself a moment to be grateful Mr. Fantastic had been the one to confront himself and Mitchell as they came through the doors. He decided not to argue the question of who exactly was backing up whom. Meanwhile, the Thing went on, "It's clobberin' time!"

"Not quite," Loki replied placatingly, wondering whether "clobbering" meant what he thought it did, and if so exactly who or what the Thing thought he was going to "clobber" all the way down here by themselves. He had no intention of volunteering for the role. "Let us wait until we get to the surface again, shall we?"

"Good idea," Mr. Fantastic said agreeably, as he released Loki and Mitchell from his coils and re-shaped his body into that of a man. That part was fairly disturbing, as well. When he was back in his normal shape, Mr. Fantastic asked, "Now, how are we going to get topside without being seen?"

"If you would be so kind as to draw a little nearer, and trust me on this," Loki began-- with any luck, the Human Torch was the only member of their group who was familiar with the myths about him, although it was difficult to believe Johnny Storm was the best-read member of this team-- " I intend to cast a spell that will render us all but invisible, all right?"

The Thing looked dubious, which was quite a sight on a face that appeared to be formed out of rock, and looked for an opinion to Mr. Fantastic, who shrugged. 

"I don't think we have a choice," he said, "we have to trust him."

Loki wondered when the Human Torch had become his favourite member of the Fantastic Four. Or, well, perhaps the Invisible Woman, to whom he had not yet spoken. 

"You actually do have a choice," Annie, who seemed to share his opinion, spoke up. "You can stay right here." 

It was a shame, Loki thought as he smiled at her gratefully, that neither of the Fantastics could hear her. 

Mitchell clearly thought the same thing.

"You actually do have a choice," he told them. "You can stay the hell here."

"That's not quite what I said," Annie pointed out. 

"Surely remaining here, waiting to be found by the Dire Wraiths, is not preferable to trusting me for a few minutes," Loki pointed out reasonably. 

"When you put it like that..." Mr. Fantastic replied evenly, and glanced at the Thing, who shrugged. Loki was not sure whether he actually heard the sound of rocks rubbing together, or only imagined it. He resolutely did not allow himself to think the noise was coming from inside the Thing's head. Smiling tightly, Loki said, 

"If you would just come this way..."

They almost got away with it. They had made it up to the second deck, and were tiptoeing toward the final set of metal stairs, when a door opened and an armed crew member stepped out just in time to cannon into the Thing. 

Who clutched at Mitchell and Mr. Fantastic, who both stumbled into Loki. Who, distracted, momentarily dropped the glamour. 

Really, it was the sort of thing that would have looked quite funny in a television program. In real life, it was not terribly amusing. Loki threw the glamour back over the others in a panicky gesture, rather like a man surprised in the bath grabbing at a towel, but the guard had certainly seen enough to know there were intruders present who had just cloaked themselves with magic. 

One of the really thoughtful features of Tony's ridiculous costume was the panel in the leather coat, easily reachable, that held the throwing knives. Loki hefted one at the same moment the guard raised his rifle. 

The guard smiled in a nasty way. "You know what they say, about bringing a knife to a gunfi-- "

"No," Loki replied, as he jerked his blade back out of the man's throat and wiped it on the corpse's uniform. "You must tell me sometime." He replaced the knife in its hidden sheath with one hand, then used that hand to open the door through which the guard had come, holding the corpse upright with his other. He was vaguely aware of Mitchell picking up the fallen rifle as he slung the body back into the room and sent a blast of destructive magic after it. He told himself he only imagined a scream as he slammed the door on the brief inferno and ducked back under the glamour. "Necessary," he said shortly, ignoring the way his heart was hammering, and gestured for the others to follow. He did not acknowledge Mitchell's swift pat to his back, but that did not mean he was not grateful for the gesture.

They made it to the main deck without further trouble, where they quickly discovered why the lower levels were so deserted: everyone seemed to be up here, dealing with Thor and his friends. As a result, when Loki dropped the glamour, his little commando group had a moment in which the element of surprise was entirely on their side. 

The Thing charged into the defenders from behind, scattering them as effectively as a rhinoceros might have. Mitchell had apparently learned the use of a pulse rifle somewhere, and it was certainly a welcome alternative to the use of his fangs. Annie snatched a red metal cylinder from a bracket on an outer wall-- Loki seemed to recall such cylinders were intended for use if a fire broke out-- and she and Mr. Fantastic quickly began to work in tandem: he enveloping Hydra guards in his coils, she smashing them in the head with her makeshift weapon. Mr. Fantastic looked startled when one of their victims disintegrated, and then seemed to remember whatever briefing he had received on the weakness of the Wraiths. 

Loki very quickly had little attention to spare for the others, his own hands being quite full already. The effects of his magical exertions was beginning to catch up with him: taken individually, the efforts involved in contacting the rhinoceros, in casting the illusions and the glamour, would have been negligible, but when added together and combined with the destruction he had cast into that closed room-- and it was silly, he knew it was silly, but he did not like to think about the way the guard had sagged, or the scream-- 

Added all together, these efforts had used up enough magic that Loki could feel awareness of it, hovering giddily at the edge of his consciousness. No other magic seemed to be coming to help him, which was not unexpected, but it meant he was going to have to be a little careful with the use of his own.

Which translated into Loki fighting with Tony's thoughtfully-provided knives, rather than magic, and that, frankly, was not an enjoyable experience. Loki had, of course, been trained since childhood in close combat, and the patient soldiers at the palace had ensured he was skilled at it, but his preference had always been for a more hands-off style when deadly force was required. He had never enjoyed cleaning someone else's blood and vital fluids off his armour, and also, frankly, just the _feeling_ of another creature's life escaping was... not something he cared to experience in close quarters, if he could avoid it. 

Loki's recent experiences in Bristol had not helped in this regard: his old qualms had been born more of fastidiousness than any real concern for anyone else as a separate living being. Now, although he recognized he was still a dreadfully selfish creature, he found himself at least able to imagine and sympathize with the inner workings of other beings, and he did not like the idea of permanently ending their existences, whether it was necessary or not. He liked even less having to actually _feel_ it happen.

However, the circumstances called for ruthlessness, and since he lacked an unlimited supply of throwing knives, personal contact was also necessary. Reserving his occasional blasts of magic for moments when he really needed to protect a member of his little band, Loki concentrated on keeping his feet moving, dodging and weaving and making the deadliest use possible of the weapons at his disposal, while not letting himself think too much about what he was actually doing. 

The magic was not, of course, all on one side: the Dire Wraith officers of the vessel were casting magic so freely that Loki was forced to concede their source and supply must be quite different from his, and indeed vastly exceed it. Between that, and the sheer numbers involved, even one as stubborn and as poorly-acquainted with reality as Loki was forced to understand the battle could not possibly end well for them. 

He had quite lost track of where Thor and his friends had gotten to, and so was startled when he glanced toward a movement in his peripheral vision and spotted Fandral and Volstagg near the dipping guardrail of the deck. 

And perhaps Loki's attention was a dangerous thing, because almost no sooner had he noticed the two than a small group of defenders managed to get one of the helicarrier's great guns turned inward. The Thing made for it, but too late: there was a flash and a roar and, rather than a pulse of energy, a great shell was spat from its barrel. 

The Thing happened to be in mid-leap as the shell was fired and it went under his path, Mr. Fantastic coiled out of the way and Annie shrieked in instinctive dismay as it passed harmlessly through her. 

And then there was a roar of anguish that hardly sounded sentient, but was somehow still recognizable. Loki dispatched the guard with whom he was fighting and turned toward Volstagg. 

The big warrior was so covered in blood that it was a breath before Loki realized he was physically unharmed. 

And half of another before Loki realized the space formerly occupied by Fandral was empty. 

There was a gory pile of... _something_... lying at Volstagg's feet, still moving feebly. 

Volstagg bent instinctively, heedless of his own safety, and Loki had to reach out with magic to repel a sneaky blow from a Dire Wraith. Hogun appeared from somewhere, wielding his ugly spiked mace, and made short work of the Wraith. 

And then Loki was running across the deck, his real mission completely forgotten: Loki had never been very skilled at remembering the concept of "a greater good," and he could not reliably tell the difference between that which was important and that which was merely personal. He landed on his knees next to the crumpled Fandral, ignoring the horrible feeling as he slithered in the man's blood. 

The great shell had torn Fandral nearly in two. A mortal would have died instantly, a werewolf of shock before his body hit the deck. But the Aesir were tough, and Fandral apparently had not the sense to know he should be dead right now. 

He was even still conscious, though barely, his eyes wide with shock more than pain, meeting Loki's with an expression almost of puzzlement. Feebly, he flailed the one arm he could still move, as though making an effort to rise. 

Loki grabbed the moving hand and held it still. "Don't," he ordered tightly, and then looked up. "Mitchell! Cover us, please." Later, it would occur to him that Fandral's warrior friends, or even the Thing, would have been a better choice to stand between Loki and Fandral and those who would finish them both off. Loki, however, was hardly capable of logical thought at that moment, and what he needed was for someone he trusted to watch their backs. Mitchell, resolutely averting his eyes from the blood under his feet, did as Loki asked. 

Fandral's dazed eyes dropped to the ghastly mess of his torso, and then wavered back up to Loki's. In a terrible, shocked little voice, he said, "I think-- "

"Well, there is your mistake," Loki interrupted, making his voice as brisk as possible in an effort to keep it from trembling. "Leave the thinking to those of us equipped for the task." Beside him, he was aware of Volstagg roaring as he returned to the fray, his area of combat now a tightly-defined area, circling around Loki and Fandral. Without stopping to let himself think whether he would be able to do any good, or indeed whether his own departure from the battle would lead to disaster, Loki laid his hands on the worst of Fandral's horrible wounds and tried to clear his mind. 

Loki knew only one healing spell, the same one Eir had generally used on him when he had come to her with the broken bones and other injuries that resulted from always being elected quarry by a group of children who never held back when they played huntsmen. She had explained the spell to him a time or two, mostly to keep his mind occupied and help him resist shameful tears while he waited for the pain to go away. 

It was a good spell, though it involved a great deal of concentration, and Loki had used it several times since his discovery that he could make it work. The first time, he had healed George after a nearly-fatal attack by spiteful vampires. He had most recently used it on himself, after Thor was enchanted into harming him by Wilbur the Dire Wraith. The most complex and difficult use so far was probably the time he had healed Thor after another enchanter had run him through with a sword. 

That had been a terrible injury, but it was nothing compared to this: the shell had torn Fandral nearly wide open, and the fact his legs were not instinctively moving struck Loki as a very bad sign. The spell required concentration, but it also needed time, since Loki had not a magical implement like the great spear of Odin to blast healing power into him. Time was, manifestly, what Fandral did not have. 

Loki banished his dread of the consequences of failure, felt magic flowing into Fandral as he collected his thoughts and concentrated. He did his best to ignore the hand that feebly clutched at the leather of his heavy, gory coat, as though holding onto Loki would help him hold onto consciousness. Or as though for comfort, although it was difficult to imagine how Fandral could possibly find contact with Loki to be comforting. Any port in a storm, as the humans would say. Loki forced himself to focus. If he could only hold the life in Fandral, keep him alive long enough to will everything back together, despite the terrible damage... 

Loki had hated Fandral for most of his life, and he still had no love for the man, friend of Thor or not. He did not. But one could hardly hate someone who was dead-- Loki could hardly remember even his hatred of Laufey, who after all had slain his mother and tried to murder him-- so if he intended to carry on hating Fandral, as surely he did, then it was necessary for the fool to remain alive... 

Loki could hardly hear the battle going on around him, although he was conscious of Mitchell's feet and legs next to his own shoulder, as he bent over Fandral. He was conscious of the feeling of shoving something back in as fast as it was leaking out, of being unable to make any headway-- although so far he was at least not losing ground-- of sparkles of light beginning to impede his vision as the effort took its toll, and the point at which the obstinate force of his will began to make itself felt as his powers started to ebb-- 

And then the light was not all before his eyes. Loki involuntarily looked up as he realized the whole sky was lit up, despite the black clouds boiling in it, and the combatants on the helicarrier deck all seemed to stand still for an instant. 

And then there was a flash and the deck was filled with Aesir warriors, more than Loki could possibly count. In what seemed like seconds, the battle turned into a rout, and Mitchell gave ground as two Aesir, armoured like the others but more lightly armed, came toward them. Loki was scarcely able to recognize the two men as assistants of Eir's, but when one of them firmly pushed him aside, he stumbled obediently to his feet and moved out of the way. Mitchell and Annie helped him to the railing and Loki was aware of Mitchell continuing to protect him as his head whirled. 

The rest of the battle was a foregone conclusion. By the time Loki would have been capable of returning to the attack, he was no longer needed. Instead, he leaned on the railing and watched dumbly as the Aesir soldiers went through the wreckage, checking for survivors. They were manifestly not seeking to take prisoners. Then, when the two healers shifted Fandral onto a litter to carry him away, Loki stepped forward, slipped between Thor and Volstagg to the injured man's side.

Fandral looked a great deal better than he had, with his insides no longer on the outside. His eyelids seemed heavy, but he opened them at Loki's approach and his expression was nearly alert. Once again, the hand reached out, and this time Loki caught at it. He was relieved at the new strength in the grip around his fingers. 

"Thanks," Fandral said thickly.

"I did not do much," Loki admitted. 

"Enough," Fandral replied, lips quirking feebly. Loki patted his hand, then released it and stepped back as the two healers silently lifted the stretcher. Something crushingly heavy fell on his shoulder and Loki sagged slightly before he managed to bear up under it. He glanced sideways just as the weight withdrew and Volstagg stepped closer to the litter-- and his eyes unexpectedly met the unreadable gaze of Hogun. 

There was a moment of silence, and Hogun looked away first. Loki decided this was a good moment to make himself scarce. 

He did not get far-- he and his friends were heading for the upslope side of the deck, skirting squeamishly around huddled bodies, when his way was blocked by a huge black horse.

One thing you had to give Father, he certainly knew how to make an entrance. Unfortunately, having read the ridiculous Midgardian legend, Loki was not sure he would ever be able to look at Sleipnir, his supposed son, with a completely straight face ever again. 

The expression on Odin's, however, sobered Loki up in a hurry. The Allfather's expression was so grim that Loki found himself instinctively marshalling defensive explanations for his decision to abandon his share of the battle in order to help-- or anyway try to help-- Fandral. It had of course not been the act of a true military man, of one who knew his duty and put it above all-- but surely his father knew what all Asgard had long since realized, that Duty and Loki were not exactly inseparable companions-- ?

And then the Allfather looked around, at the death and wreckage that surrounded them, and Loki realized the expression had nothing to do with him. That, perhaps, despite the clear necessity, the Allfather found the carnage just as distasteful as Loki did. The last great war fought by Asgard had been the one against Jotunheim, which had of course ended when Loki was an infant. Loki and Thor were raised to know their father as a great warrior, but it now occurred to Loki that he had never actually seen Odin in that role before this. 

Sleipnir shuffled forward a little, and reached out to lay his muzzle against Loki's shoulder. The urge to giggle rose again, despite the fact Loki knew the horse simply remembered the treats sneaked to him in the stable by the younger prince-- really, he had been without any pride at all, courting favour with his father's _horse_ when he realized he had failed with everybody else. Odin instinctively started to rein Sleipnir away, then his eyes finally focused on the being before him and he lowered his hand. Loki suddenly began to wonder whether Odin had actually come to find him, or whether Sleipnir, left to his own devices, had simply walked up to the nearest friendly face. 

Loki reached up to rub the horse's cheek, and Odin leaned forward in turn to place a hand on Loki's shoulder. His fingers tightened but he said nothing, for long enough that Loki heard himself ask nervously, 

"Have you… have you spoken to Thor? I believe he was seeing Fandral off before the healers took him away, but-- "

"No," Odin said abruptly, cleared his throat, and repeated, "No. I have not." The grip on Loki's shoulder turned into a pat, and Odin straightened in the saddle. "We are needed again, by your friends the Avengers, and will leave as soon as… " He gestured at the soldiers occupied in grisly cleanup, and fell silent again. Loki, prompted by who-knew-what folly, found himself reaching up to lay a hand on his father's knee, as if the Allfather was in need of comfort from _him._ Odin blinked down at him, startled, and then his expression cleared, as though he was finally, truly _there_. "We will leave shortly, if you wish to accompany us."

"Of course," Loki replied, and then belatedly glanced around at Annie and Mitchell, who nodded. As he turned back to the Allfather, Loki remembered something. "There is, however, something I need to do before we go-- I left some human children, friends of mine, in the protection of…" The rhinoceros suddenly seemed too difficult to explain. "I should see them safely returned to their guardians." 

"Indeed," Odin murmured, reining Sleipnir back a step. He still looked… odd. Loki was so used to believing his father invincible that he was not sure what reaction might now be appropriate, which must explain how he came to hear himself saying, 

"Perhaps you would like to come with-- ?"

He felt foolish the moment the words left his mouth, but as he spoke, Odin was nodding. 

"Yes. Certainly."

~oOo~

Speaking of making an entrance, Loki reflected, one could hardly improve upon walking back into the zoo, still in his supervillain costume and helmet, accompanied by Odin, who had dismounted and was leading Sleipnir between them on a loose rein. Loki had magicked the blood off all of them, and Sleipnir seemed to have forgotten for the moment that he was a prancing war steed and was ambling along with a daisy sticking out of the side of his mouth. Really, apart from the helmet, this was as unthreatening as the three of them were capable of looking.

Which as probably a good thing. When the sounds of battle ceased, Mrs. Kingston had apparently come looking for her missing charges, because Loki arrived at the white rhinoceros enclosure to find the headmistress and two zoo employees-- the man named John and a young woman-- gazing in consternation through the fence. Inside, the children and even the two adult chaperones appeared to have accepted the situation, and were sitting on the grass, entirely hemmed in by a circle of rhinoceros bottoms, and apparently teaching the young calf to enjoy having her ears rubbed.

Loki, who had been hoping to avoid explanations about this matter, sighed as he walked up. Mrs. Kingston turned to him, looking perplexed. 

"Do you know anything about-- ?" she asked, gesturing.

"Yes," Loki replied. "It was an agreement between us." Turning to the rhinoceroses, he said-- aloud as well as through magic-- "The danger has passed, and you have my gratitude." The largest female turned her head so that she could see him out of one sunken eye. Loki once again had the feeling of being in contact with something large and alien and intelligent. 

And then the connection disappeared, and the rhinoceroses left their circle and ambled away. Loki cast the spell that opened the portal in the fence and gestured for the humans to come out. The adults obediently herded the children in front of them. As Trevor passed through the opening he caught sight of Odin and Sleipnir and grabbed Loki's hand, as though for reassurance. Patrick hesitated next to Trevor as though trying to decide whether to grab for Loki's other hand, or perhaps for Trevor's.

Loki looked down at the boys and said, "It's quite all right. This is my father." Trevor looked at him dubiously. It was evident the child harboured doubts as to whether a being so old and grown-up as Loki could possibly possess parents. If only he knew. 

"Really?" Trevor asked. 

"Really," Loki assured him. "Honest." This said with a straight face. 

Patrick looked at Odin with a frown of concentration and then spoke, his tone confidential, as though the information might have escaped the Allfather's notice: "Your horse has eight legs."

"Indeed he does," Odin replied, and Loki was deeply relieved to see amusement, rather than that awful blankness, seep into his father's expression. Patrick nodded, perfectly seriously, as though it was just as he had thought.

"Well," Loki addressed Mrs. Kingston awkwardly, "we just thought… we should ensure the children's safe return to you."

"Thank you," the headmistress replied, also awkwardly. Loki hesitated, then took a deep breath and blurted, 

"I… I suppose Carol has already employed another assistant?" 

"She has," Mrs. Kingston replied. Loki, trying to conceal his disappointment, had opened his mouth to explain that… he had only been wondering… when she added, "But he didn't like the job and he quit last Thursday. I don't suppose you'd be interested in coming back to us?"

Trevor clutched at his hand and the rest of the children began hopping up and down with urgent expressions on their faces. Loki nodded quickly. "I would. I would like that very much. Shall we say-- ?"

"Monday?" suggested Mrs. Kingston. 

"Perfect," Loki replied hastily, before she could reconsider. He paused. "… And what day is it today?"


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which reunions of all sorts are affected, New York doesn't get off as lightly as London (sorry) and there is more swearing than in previous chapters (sorry).

"Did you ask?" Annie prompted, as soon as Loki had left his father with Tyr and Thor, and had come to find his friends.

"I beg your pardon?" Loki replied, jerking his eyes away from his father's back and for once not following one of Annie's conversational leaps. 

"Did you ask for your job back?" Annie clarified. Mitchell made a no-no-no face at her, then tried to look innocent when he realized Loki was looking at him. Loki made a face at Mitchell and then turned back to Annie, pulling the ridiculous horned supervillain helmet off his head at the same time. 

"As a matter of fact, I did." He paused, just long enough to cause Annie to look as though she might burst with impatience. "And I was given it back." It was a moment before he could go on, what with the embracing. He dropped his helmet and did not feel the need to retrieve it immediately, his arms being rather more pleasantly occupied. After a moment, however, he went on, "We initially agreed that I should return to my duties on Monday-- "

"Great!" exclaimed Mitchell. And then: "Wait, what's today?"

"That was my question. Apparently, it is Saturday. Owing to the still-pending matter of-- "

"-- saving the world," Annie supplied. 

"Well, yes," Loki agreed. "That. Because of... that... we negotiated a return date of a week from Monday, which does give us a little more leeway, but still means we do not have any time to waste." 

Annie hugged him again. "I'm so happy for you. How's your dad?" she added, performing another verbal pirouette. It was just as well Loki was used to them. 

"He is…" Loki paused, trying to find the right words to explain, and automatically dropping to an undertone in case someone else heard. "I think he is… all right… now. He did seem rather shaken after the battle-- Was that only my impression, or-- ?"

"No, we saw it, too," Mitchell said. 

"That's what I meant," Annie explained. "Is he okay?"

"He seems better, now," Loki replied. "I think." Wistfully, he added, "He appeared to find the children rather amusing. I do not remember him finding us so, when my brother and I were children."

"My dad used to say the same thing about my grandfather," Annie told him. "He always said Granddad used to laugh when my sister and I did things he'd have half-killed Dad over. I think it comes with getting older." Loki nodded slowly, now deep in thought, and Mitchell, looking at him closely, spoke up. 

"You could have knocked me over with a feather, the day I figured out my dad was actually a man. Not a superhero," he said. "Although of course I suppose in a way yours actually is." 

Loki uttered a reluctant little chuckle. "Well, whatever he is, any show of vulnerability by him is new, and rather disturbing, to me." A thought struck him. "Although, given that for much of my life I believed myself to have been raised by an all-powerful, rigid being who had little interest in or affection for anyone who was small and... worthless… " He trailed off.

"What?" Mitchell prompted.

Loki made a gesture more like a wriggle than a shrug. "Let us just say, it seems there has always been more to my father than I realized." 

Annie smiled, then reached over and took his hand. Before any of them could speak again, Sif and the… well, the Warriors Two, at the moment, walked up. There was an awkward silence, and Loki decided he might as well speak up first. Dividing his attention between Sif and Volstagg, he asked, 

"What do the healers say about Fandral?"

Despite clearly not being addressed, it was Hogun who answered:

"They say it was very lucky they got to him when they did." He hesitated, and then added, "And by that, of course, they mean it was very lucky that _you_ got to him when _you_ did, that being the only reason he was still alive by the time they reached him." He fell silent, which was not unusual for Hogun, but the awkwardness in his expression was. Loki had no idea how to respond to this, so he simply nodded. 

Hogun, who had already uttered more words in a single string than Loki had heard from him in years-- and surely a longer speech than he had addressed to Loki himself in all their lives-- appeared as though he wished to say something more. Instead, he looked at the ground. There was another deeply uncomfortable silence.

And then Volstagg, never the cleverest of speakers, stepped forward without a word and lifted Loki right off his feet in a ridiculously undignified bear-hug. 

Loki had spent several hundred years trying to teach the thick-headed friends of his brother that he would not put up with being mauled, manhandled, or otherwise pawed about-- at least not by people who disliked him, and whose intentions toward him were not friendly. He might have thought twice about his efforts had he known how they would be misconstrued by the people whose touch he still craved. However, once the damage was done and he accepted that friendly contact was out of the question for him, he had no compunction whatsoever about making his position on unfriendly contact as clear as possible to Thor's friends, backing up his protests with magic whenever necessary. Volstagg, who meant the least harm but did the most damage, had also been the most difficult to persuade. 

And here, again, he had forgotten the lesson-- or perhaps had simply been quick to learn another, since Loki, though dangling foolishly in midair, found himself in no immediate danger of suffocating or suffering a broken rib. With his arms pinned to his sides and his magic still recovering, there was little he could do to escape, and he found he did not particularly want to, anyway. 

In the past, Loki would have found this position threatening in the extreme, but he had no reason at this moment to expect Sif or Hogun to attack him while he was helpless. Therefore, instead of struggling, he hooked his chin over Volstagg's shoulder, that being the closest approach he could currently make to hugging back, and patiently waited for Volstagg to decide he had adequately expressed his emotions. 

Which the big warrior did, eventually, or perhaps he simply needed his hands free to blow his nose. At any rate, he finally set Loki down, saying quietly,

"Thank you."

"Yes, I got that," Loki muttered, not nearly as grumpily as he sounded. Volstagg smiled, then patted the back of Loki's head with a gentle paw. That being a gesture both Thor and Loki's housemates used to express affection toward him, Loki found himself compelled to realize that Volstagg had, at the very least, been paying attention recently. 

Volstagg was entirely unembarrassed, but Loki found himself feeling rather ridiculous, so it was a relief when Sif walked over, remarked, "I'm afraid I cannot actually lift you off the ground, my friend," and hugged him swiftly. 

"Yes, well, one does what one can," Loki muttered foolishly, and looked about for Thor. Who, having apparently finished his conversation with Odin and Tyr, came striding over to join them. Loki took one look at his brother's face and put up his hands, saying hastily, "Volstagg and Sif have already said all there is to-- "

Thor said quietly, "Try not to be sillier than you can help, brother," and wrapped his arms firmly around Loki. Who, realizing he had no choice in the matter, accepted this third embrace with the best grace he could muster.

And... oh, all right, enjoyed it. Fine. And also returned it, since in this case he retained the use of his arms. When Thor released him, Loki shuffled backwards a step and straightened his costume, which owing to its weight and composition had not actually gotten very rumpled anyway, despite all the pawing. 

Pretending not to notice the smirks on the faces of Mitchell and Annie, Loki addressed Thor: "Are the plans set?"

"Yes," Thor replied calmly. "As soon as the last of the wounded are transported back to Asgard, the Bifrost will take us to New York to join the Avengers. It is likely this will be the final battle."

Loki glanced at Mitchell and Annie, and was glad to see he was not the only one who swallowed hard. 

~oOo~

When Coulson's Starkphone rang, it was all George could do not to knock the agent down and grab it from him. 

Well. _Try_ to knock the agent down and grab it from him. George was quite sure that, at any time other than the full moon, attempting anything so stupid with Coulson would just lead to George ending up flat on the ground wondering where his lungs went. So he just _wished_ he could grab the phone from the agent, and instead waited for Coulson to answer the call. 

In fairness, Coulson was probably only about an eighth of a second slower than George would have liked: he pulled out the phone halfway through the first metallic chirp, pressed a button, and spoke. "Coulson."

"Mitchell," came a welcome voice on the other end. Coulson pressed the speakerphone button and Mitchell's voice became more clear. "We've got things pretty much under control here, so we'll be moving on to New York-- "

Susan Storm, who was just as impatient as George, and possibly really _could_ take the phone away from Coulson, leaned in to ask, 

"How are Reed and Johnny and Ben?" 

"They're great, just fine," Mitchell replied. "They helped us deal with the helicarrier, and they're coming to New York as well."

"And everyone's okay?" George could not resist adding his own two cents. "You and Annie and Loki?" Really, Annie being a ghost, that she was unharmed should have gone without saying, but recently he and his friends had had experiences that were weird even by supernatural standards, and you never could tell.

"We're all fine. One of Thor's friends got hurt pretty badly, but Loki was able to hold him together until the healers arrived, and they think he's going to recover."

"Good to hear," Coulson said, taking control of the conversation again. George found himself unable to care very much that one of Thor's pals had gotten hurt-- except maybe Sif, and the use of "he" indicated it wasn't Sif who was injured-- so he didn't argue with the agent. "Do you want us to join you in New York?"

"Yes," Mitchell said. "That's pretty much why I'm calling. As soon as we get things cleaned up here, the Bifrost will take us to New York, and then I think the plan is to pick up the Jotun troops from Moscow, along with whoever of the mutants wants to come along. After that, Heimdall will collect you lot from that beach where Thor called to him before. Okay?"

"What's a Bifrost?" Susan whispered to George.

"Intergalactic tube service," George whispered back. Susan's expression suggested he had not made anything clearer.

Coulson gave them both a lizard-eyed glance of warning and replied, "Sounds good. Call me with a heads-up when you get to New York."

"Will do. See you soon," Mitchell said cheerfully, and the call ended. Coulson folded the phone, put it back in his pocket, and looked at the other two. 

"I don't know about you," he said, in his inhumanly level voice, "but that's a real load off my mind. Let's go update Pepper on the situation."

George and Susan exchanged a look and a shrug, and then followed Agent Coulson.

~oOo~

With Nick Fury once again in unchallenged possession of SHIELD's New York headquarters-- there had been a few Dire Wraiths in residence when they arrived, but these had been sought out and ruthlessly disposed of with guidance from the unforgiving Clea Strange-- the Avengers now had, at least, access to all the intelligence and communication services they could want. As Clint put it, this at least made them harder to sneak up on.

Tony wasn't so much worried about anyone sneaking up on them, not at the moment. What he was worried about right now was a frontal assault by the entire might of Hydra and the Dire Wraith empire.

Tony and Rhodey, both suited up, walked into the main-floor office commandeered by Fury and occupied by him, Steve and Hill, and began talking immediately:

"There's another division of Marines on its way," Rhodey reported. "And the National Guard is on standby."

Fury and Hill looked at the two Iron Men, then at each other. 

"National Guard," Fury said disgustedly. Hill set down her pencil and leaned back in her chair. 

"Marines won't be much use, either," she replied. "Not against this."

"Might buy us some time to evacuate civilians," Fury shrugged, then scowled at the faces that stared back at him. "What? I evacuate civilians. When I can."

Steve didn't argue. "Is there any way we can draw the battle away from the city?"

"No," Fury replied. 

"We don't even know which direction they'll be coming from, or how many there'll be," Tony pointed out quickly, "but we can at least go out and meet them. Maybe hold them in New Jersey."

"That's something," muttered Steve, a Brooklyn kid to the core.

"Don't say that to Clint," Tony muttered back. "I'd be willing to bet he's a big fan of Bruce Springsteen."

"How the hell we going to _hold_ them when we've got nothing to hold them _with?"_ Fury demanded. He didn't sound angry. That was what scared them. He sounded resigned. "We don't even have the God of Goddamn Thunder on our side right now."

"On the plus side, London and Moscow are safe," Rhodey offered. No one said: _For now, at least until we're wiped out and Hydra goes back for another go-round._

"Hoo-fuckin'-ray," Fury replied heavily. Then, uncharacteristically: "Sorry. The tension's starting to get to me."

Hill shrugged. "It's like Tom Petty said: the waiting is the hardest part." Tony let out a startled snort of laughter at the reference. Hill glanced at Fury as though she was expecting a rebuke, but before he could say anything she happened to look past him out the window. "Holy _shit,_ " she said. 

Fury, Steve, Tony and Rhodey turned to look, too. The sky outside had gone dark and threatening... and then it was full of light. 

"What the hell is that?" Hill demanded. 

"Our reinforcements," Tony replied, hope beginning to wind its way around his arc reactor. He turned for the door, and ran.

By the time they got outside-- and the reason for taking the ground-floor office as the command centre was to make it quicker to do just that-- the street was filled with archaic-looking troops. Fury strode down the walk to meet them, coat flaring dramatically. 

He still lost out in the Making An Entrance Stakes, as far as Tony was concerned, when there was a second flash and suddenly an eight-legged black horse, carrying an armoured man on his back, reared up before them. Tony suddenly remembered the hint of fear that seemed to lie underneath every one of Loki's mentions of his father, and now he understood it: Odin Allfather looked more like an angel of destruction than anyone's dad. It suddenly made perfect sense to Tony, that Loki could grow up both desperate for Odin's approval and still a sideways little twister-- any time you were in doubt about Dad's reaction, you'd almost certainly try to hide what you were doing from him. Tony didn't think he'd have the guts to court Odin's wrath _right now_ , suited up and surrounded by superheroes. 

The black horse's four front legs touched down and he turned on the forehand, prancing and snorting fiercely. Odin barely moved in the saddle, touched the horse with a lower leg to straighten him, and walked him forward to greet Nick Fury. Tony gave Fury all the points for standing his ground. 

"Greetings," Odin said, in a ringing voice. "As agreed, Asgard comes to offer our assistance." 

Fury inclined his head. "We thank you." 

Tony was looking around at the soldiers. He spotted Thor easily, by his size, and then Loki, by his helmet. It suddenly occurred to him that he maybe had gone a little overboard on the helmet, because if he hadn't happened to know Loki was on their side, he would not have guessed it by the horns. The thought was emphasized when he heard Natasha, behind him, mutter, 

"Who the hell is that with the-- wait, wait a minute, is that-- ?"

"Loki," Tony agreed, out of the side of his mouth. It hadn't occurred to him, in Scotland, to make sure all the Avengers got a look at Loki's new costume. That suddenly struck him as unfortunate.

"Jesus, I'm glad we're seeing the headgear now and not in the heat of battle. Clint, Bruce, the horns are friendly, okay?"

"If you say so." Clint sounded like he thought just the act of _wearing_ the horned helmet might qualify a person as a supervillain. It seemed only fair to Tony that he cop to the responsibility. 

"Sorry, guys. My bad," Tony admitted. "JARVIS and I came up with the costume. And the helmet."

"Figures," Bruce muttered. 

"Yeah. If Loki had thought up a helmet like that, he definitely would have had the sense to make _someone else_ wear it," Natasha agreed. 

Tony was about to continue the argument-- one nice thing about the Iron Man suit was, Steve could elbow you in the ribs all he wanted and you could totally ignore him-- although he realized Natasha was right, the helmet really did kind of look like a prank-- when the sky lit up again. When the flash cleared, there were more… soldiers… in the street. 

"Holy fuck, someone please tell me these guys are on our side, too," Clint said faintly. Tony was unable to utter a smartass comment, or even think of one, as he looked at the phalanx of monsters now standing beside the soldiers of Asgard. 

No. Not monsters. Tony looked up at the great blue creatures and remembered the rescued prisoners. Two of them had looked formidable. Hundreds of them was almost beyond imagining. 

Tony stepped forward before any misunderstandings could take root.

"I'm Tony Stark, and you must be the warriors of Jotunheim," he said loudly. 

" _That's_ what Loki really is?" Bruce muttered behind him. 

"What Loki _is_ is what Loki really is," Natasha retorted, also in an undertone. "But I guess this is part of it."

"Don't get all sensitive on me now, Tash," Clint grumbled, just as the apparent general of the Jotun stepped forward. 

Speaking of horns… Tony stood his ground as the blue giant walked forward, and part of him could not help but be impressed by the great curling ram-like horns that sprang from the sides of his head. Another, smaller part found itself trying to figure out where, aside from bighorn sheep, he had seen horns like that before. 

The rest of him was quite frankly trying to control his fight-or-flight reflex, and he was very glad the Jotun troops had showed up now, rather than to the rescue later in the battle when misunderstandings were more likely to happen. 

Before the horned Jotun could speak, however, there was yet another flash, and Tony looked around to see Coulson, George, and an extremely surprised-looking Susan Storm appear in the midst of the Avengers. From somewhere behind Odin and his eight-legged horse, a voice shouted, 

"Sue! Hey, Susie!" The Human Torch came elbowing his way through the crowd, followed more sinuously by Mr. Fantastic. Apparently his current snakelike shape looked weird to more than just Tony: Odin's horse kicked at him as he slithered past. Tony figured, if he was a horse, he'd have exactly the same reaction. 

He might have kicked out at the Human Torch, too, if Johnny Storm had slowed down long enough to present a target. He reached his sister, threw his arms around her, picked her up off her feet and swung her around. He was babbling happily about their adventures and demanding to know about hers when the Thing clamped a hand over his mouth and dragged him away, leaving the field to Mr. Fantastic. 

Meanwhile, Loki, and his horns, and Mitchell-- and presumably Annie-- arrived to gather George back into the bosom of the household. Tony noticed the horse-- Sleipnir, that was his name-- didn't offer to kick Loki. Tony hoped he would have a chance to tease him later, about the respect his "son" demonstrated toward him. 

He'd just make sure Odin was out of earshot when he did it, because Tony wasn't stupid enough to test how funny the angel of destruction would find a joke about, in effect, riding around on his grandson.

While the reunions were going on, the big Jotun had moved over to speak to Fury and Odin. Tony and the other Avengers went over to make sure they didn't miss something vital. They joined Thor, who was standing to one side with his attention quite obviously divided between this interaction and his brother. 

Specifically, Thor seemed to be paying close attention to the Jotun troops within sight of Loki, and Tony suddenly recalled the details of Loki's relationship, if you could call it that, with the people he was born to. Obviously, you couldn't blame the Jotun if they were mad at him, but Tony found himself just as uneasily alert as Thor for any sign of aggression toward Loki from the Jotun, despite the fact they seemed to be ignoring him completely. 

He checked back into the conversation just as the Jotun general, or whatever he was, addressed himself to Fury:

"I am Thrym Nalson-- " 

"There are those who call me... Thrym..." Tony said out of the side of his mouth. It had to be the unreality and the adrenaline, but he suddenly remembered where he had seen headgear like the Jotun's before, and he only hoped he could avoid calling him "Thrym the Enchanter" to his face. 

"For the love of _God_ , Tony, shut up," Steve muttered at him, as Clint, Natasha, and Bruce made muffled noises. Steve knew perfectly well what Tony was talking about-- after their previous adventure battling figures from British Mythology Tony made damn sure Steve, Thor and Loki saw _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_ \-- but Captain America was much better than Tony at stifling inappropriate thoughts, if he even had them. 

Thrym (the Enchanter) continued, "-- my troops, and our mutant allies-- " of course, the Jotun had been in Moscow with the Aesir and the mutants, and Tony only hoped Magneto hadn't managed to form an actual alliance with the big Blue Meanies, because _that_ the Earth did _not_ need-- "also offer you our assistance. I speak for my army in the absence of our King, Byleistr, but my voice is his in this matter."

Fury, no more ruffled by the horned giant than by the eight-legged horse, thanked him gravely for the help. "We probably don't have a lot of time, so we should make a provisional plan for how we counter the attacks."

And then Steve, self-effacing, take-one-for-the-team, the-mission's-the-important-thing Steve, spoke:

"I would really like to get the first crack at the Red Skull, if that's possible."

Fury turned toward him, probably to remind Steve about taking one for the team and the mission being the important thing. Before he could speak, though, Odin did.

"Is this a matter of personal honour?" he asked. 

"Yes. You could put it that way," Steve replied tightly. "Not to the extent of actually letting him escape if he defeats me, of course, but... I'd like to deal with him myself if I can."

Odin nodded with perfect understanding. "That is acceptable to me," he said, and Thrym (the Enchanter) made a noise of assent.

And then, from far off, maybe over New Jersey, they heard the sound of alien aircraft.

~oOo~

Clint notched another explosive arrow in his bow and drew in a breath, smooth and quiet. Beside him, Natasha and the blue mutant called Mystique waited for him to complete the job of bringing down the crippled alien craft.

Once they got the Wraiths and the Hydra troops on the ground, the fight became a little more even, but the problem was bringing down the Dire Wraith ships in the first place. Whatever they were made of, it wasn't metal, which rendered Magneto, who should have been their main weapon, a lot less useful. Between them, Thor and Storm created disturbances powerful enough to seriously inconvenience the craft, Iron Man's repulsor blasts turned out to cause problems to their control systems, and it turned out they were vulnerable to Clint's explosive arrows, provided he could precisely target the outtake valves of their engines. 

Clint's precision with a bow, of course, made Robin Hood look like a fucking novice, and as long as he could concentrate, he managed. Tash automatically took on the job of covering him, joined by Mystique when she realized what the two of them were up to. 

Clint just barely held his fire as the Hulk came leaping through his line of vision, roaring, and latched onto the tail of the vessel. That worked, too: the Hulk tore the horizontal stabilizer off the ship, then jumped clear as it lost control for a brief final plunge to the city street. 

It crash-landed among the abandoned Marine vehicles, and Clint was briefly grateful they were empty. For more than one reason: the Marines had turned out to be as little help against this particular peril as Fury had feared. And besides, they had a persistently human-shaped outlook on the situation: the first thing they did was jump to the conclusion the Jotun were bad guys. 

Loki had spotted the Marine weapons turning on their allies and had managed to deflect the first barrage, but _that_ had led to _more_ confusion, thanks to Tony's goddamn sense of humour. Clint would now be the first to concede that, in jeans and a hoodie, you'd have to be seriously paranoid to think Thor's little brother looked like he meant any harm, but the stupid horned helmet-- despite making it easy for Loki's friends to find him in the confusion-- definitely made him look like he was up to no good. At least, that was apparently what the Marines thought as they trained their weapons on _him_. 

Fortunately, Loki had the sense to yell to Susan Storm for help, and she cast a protective forcefield over the Jotun while Magneto, with understandably spiteful enthusiasm, disarmed the Marines and upended their vehicles. Loki and Thor had demonstrated no hard feelings while covering the Marines' retreat, but Clint for one was grateful the only combatants left on the field were people who knew how to deal with this kind of a situation. 

And wasn't _that_ a commentary on what his life had become? 

Clint looked up at the next approaching aircraft, arrow back in firing position. It was much bigger than the last one. He just had time to register its markings, the Hydra skull/octopus, before there was a flash from its cannons. The world lit up before his eyes, and then went dark. 

~oOo~

Steve had no doubt whatsoever about the identity of the aircraft that attacked Clint and Natasha's position, or rather about who was flying it. Every bit as arrogant as the Dire Wraiths, the Red Skull would want anyone watching as he rained down destruction to know exactly who was responsible. 

There was nothing he could do to help Clint and the others, so he left their rescue to a squad of Aesir troops-- and, hopefully, their supernaturally-skillful healers-- and shouted to Mr. Fantastic. Mr. Fantastic correctly interpreted Steve's gestures, converted himself into a giant rubber ball, dropped off a roof and bounced high in the air after the Hydra craft. He got one hand out, wrapped it around a missile port on the underside of the vessel, then let himself down like a rope ladder for Steve to grab hold of. The Human Torch, seeing what they were up to, immediately began harassing the ship, diving at it and throwing fireballs.

Meanwhile Steve, closely followed by the Thing, climbed up to the side of the ship. The entry hatch was, of course, locked. Steve flattened himself against the side of the ship so the Thing could reach over him and wrench the hatch loose. Steve climbed inside, followed by the Thing, who reached back out to drag Mr. Fantastic in after them.

The crew operating the weapons systems had just enough time to register the intrusion before the Thing was throwing them out the open hatch. Steve hurled his shield against the door to the flight deck. It buckled, and he ripped it off its hinges and stepped inside. 

"So, my Captain. We meet again." The voice was exactly as he remembered it, seventy years later. Steve turned to the pilot's seat and there he was, the Red Skull. "Take the controls, my friend," he added, to the shape in the second pilot's seat, as he lunged out of his own seat while Steve's shield took the Dire Wraith third officer out of the equation. 

"Of course," said the occupant, a Dire Wraith with the face and form of Dr. Strange. 

And then the Red Skull was on top of him, and Steve was too busy to pay much attention to anything else around him.


	32. Chapter 32

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I've been mostly referring to the Fantastic Four by their superhero names, but when we see things from their perspective they think of each other by their real names: Ben, Reed, Sue and Johnny. I hope that's not too confusing, since things are confused enough already!

Steve stumbled backwards out of the flight deck, shield up, as the Red Skull charged him. There was no more pretense, no attempt to appear amused or urbane or human: the Red Skull was now pure rage, frustration, possessed only by the desire to strike out at anyone he could blame for the failure so far of his plans. 

That reaction, more than anything, made Steve realize they had a chance after all. He briefly remembered Thor's descriptions of Loki's breakdown and fall. Obviously this wasn't exactly the same kind of situation, but Loki's worst excesses had apparently happened as he got more frustrated and less rational. And Loki, of course, had been a troubled kid pushed to the end of his rope in the first place: someone who, underneath his defenses, hadn't been as tough as he had tried to appear, or very stable to begin with. 

If the _Red Skull_ , a heartless professional villain if ever there was one, was giving in to that same sort of frustration and anger, then things must be looking _very_ bleak for him. 

Steve gave ground under the assault, backing down the aircraft away from the flight deck. About halfway down the narrow aisle, Mr. Fantastic peeled himself away from the bulkhead in a flat sheet as they passed him, reconstituted himself into his normal shape, and ducked into the flight deck. Somewhere else in the ship, Steve could hear the Thing fighting the remaining crew. 

And now that the way had been cleared for Mr. Fantastic to get onto the flight deck and deal with the Wraith pilot, Steve stopped retreating. He swung his shield and the Red Skull blocked it with an armoured forearm. If the Red Skull was all frustration and spite at the impending wreck of his plans, well, Steve could admit that he, himself, might easily be blinded with rage at what was being done to his city. Back in Scotland, Loki had spoken right up to claim responsibility for protecting London, on the grounds of payment owed for sanctuary. Steve's own claim on New York went without saying, because this city really _was_ his, and the wreckage below them called for retribution. 

Steve swallowed that thought, because there were things that made him _different_ from the Red Skull-- and also from Loki before his crash-- and the ability to detach himself from a situation, to be able to _think_ instead of just _reacting_ , was a big part of it. 

The Red Skull rolled away from under a blow from Steve's shield, grabbed for a sidearm in a holster. Steve brought up the shield to block what turned out to be a laser blast. The beam deflected off the shield and blew a hole in the bulkhead next to Steve, who lashed out with a foot and caught the Red Skull in the knee in a sideways sweep. The Red Skull stumbled and Steve hit him in the jaw with a gauntleted fist, then followed up with a blow from the shield. 

And then both of them were knocked off their feet as the aircraft lurched violently, rolled to the right, and began a spiraling descent. The Red Skull grinned at Steve as he dragged himself upright, hand-over-hand on the bulkhead. 

"Let us see, shall we, whether we 'super soldiers' can really survive any injury. Based on our shared history, I suspect we can."

He vaulted over Steve and threw himself out the open hatch. 

Without hesitation, Steve plunged after him. 

~oOo~

Clint gasped and lurched back into consciousness, flailing out as though to fend off attackers. Someone grabbed his wrist. 

"Calm down," ordered a female voice. Previous history suggested the voice should belong to Natasha, but it didn't. Clint opened his eyes. As he did, Mystique sat back on her heels. "Oh, good, you're not dead. Neither Natasha nor I is a skilled archer, so losing you would have been inconvenient."

"Hey, Clint, good to see you back," Natasha added, over Mystique's shoulder. "You okay?"

Clint sat up and rubbed his head, which didn't hurt nearly as much as he thought it probably should. "Give me a second. What happened?"

"Our position got hit by some kind of flash cannon," Tash explained. "Mystique here turned herself into a shield over the two of us so we wouldn't get cooked, but you were closer to the blast and you hit your head pretty hard when the concussion flattened us. Luckily, the Aesir army brought medics along with them, and if I was Tony I'd be making terrible jokes about Hawkeye being treated by a MASH unit. They seem to have fixed you up good as new. Ready to go?" 

"Sure," Clint agreed. "Thanks, Mystique."

"Don't mention it," the blue mutant replied, in a tone that said clearly: _No, really, don't ever speak to me about this again, unless you want your internal organs to become external._ Clint assumed she didn’t want her pal Magneto to think she was getting soft. As far as Clint was concerned, ignoring her own feelings about humans in favour of sticking with the mission demonstrated that she was about as tough as they made them. Tash-tough, even.

The Aesir medics made no effort to stop Clint from leaving-- considering they were used to patching up Thor and his pals, they would probably consider him a pussy if he didn't insist on rushing right back into the battle. Not, of course, that Clint cared what a bunch of dudes in funny helmets thought of him. He picked up his bow and Tash handed him his quiver. 

And then he realized he couldn't have been out for very long, because the big ship that had fired on them, the one with the arrogant Hydra symbol emblazoned on it, was still circling the battlefield. As Clint and his two companions watched, though, the circle became tighter and steeper, and they realized it had turned into more of a graveyard spiral than a circle.

Mystique spoke up, her tone thoughtful: "We should do something about that. Your Captain America and two of the Fantastic Four are aboard that aircraft."

Clint and Tash exchanged a look, and then they were running toward the anticipated crash site, Mystique jogging along behind them. Clint had no idea what they intended to do when they got there. 

~oOo~

Rhodey had been in some tight situations before, frequently because of Tony, but this one was definitely the worst, and what made it the worst was, he really couldn't blame Tony for it. All right: Tony had sort of gotten him into the mess, but he hadn't _created_ it. And, obviously, Rhodey would have ended up here with or without Tony. 

He'd still yell at Tony later, Rhodey consoled himself. Absolutely he'd yell at Tony later. They'd have a drink, and Rhodey would yell, and then they'd both laugh. Of course they would. There would definitely be a "later." 

He pulled up, firing his repulsors at one of the enemy aircraft, a vessel carrying the Hydra symbol, trying at least to drive it away from the main Aesir line. Rhodey was almost sure, however, that his fire was not the reason, a moment or two later, the ship nosed into a steep turn that became a spiral dive. 

Rhodey had been in the Air Force for most of his adult life so he knew a thing or two about spirals, and he was pretty sure the aircraft was not now in a state of controlled flight. The two figures that plunged out of the open hatch in the side of the aircraft reinforced that impression. 

And the Aesir troops were still below the aircraft, right in the path of the crash. 

Rhodey accelerated forward, took out a rocket fired from the ground _(watch it, assholes!)_ swooped above the Hydra craft, came up following it and fired his repulsors into the engines. The difference between a spin and a spiral, the thing that made the spiral so much more dangerous, was that in a spiral, the aircraft continued to fly, as opposed to the stall-spin scenario in which it would simply fall. That meant terminal velocity did not take over, the aircraft continued to accelerate, and at some point if it didn't crash first, G-forces would continue to build until the plane tore itself apart. 

Eliminating the engines in a craft like this one obviously removed the source of thrust and turned the plane into a glider. That, of course, didn't affect the aerodynamics of the situation, but at least it meant it wasn't flying toward the ground quite as _fast_. The other factor was, with the engine unserviceable, the controls went back to manual hydraulic instead of the electrical assist provided by the power system. Rhodey, as War Machine, could deal with the manual hydraulics.

Rhodey made for the lowered wing, grabbed the aileron that controlled its vertical movement, and forced it down, into the neutral position. This of course had the paired effect of pushing the lowered aileron on the raised wing into neutral as well. 

Once he was no longer fighting the engine or the aerodynamics, Rhodey went underneath the fuselage, got a grip, and powered upward. The aircraft went obediently back to straight and level flight-- or, at least, as close to straight and level flight as it was currently capable of, considering the fact that, with its relatively tiny wings, it possessed the glide ratio of a cardboard box. Rhodey, acting as the power source, controlled for the rate of sink and guided the aircraft safely down on a nearby roof. 

Which was, of course, when the battle in the flight deck, between Mr. Fantastic, the Thing, and a Dire Wraith, came spilling through the front windshield of the plane.

~oOo~

As the aircraft came diving toward them, George yelled at Balder to scatter his men. Not that this was likely to help, since they didn't have anything like enough time to flee far enough for safety, but it was the best response he could think of. 

The best Coulson could think of, on the other hand, was to shout at George and Mitchell to help him with the ground-to-air rocket launcher. Coulson and Mitchell directed the muzzle while George retrieved another shell. With a weird puffing _foom_ , the rocket was ejected up at the diving plane, changing its trajectory to follow as the aircraft followed its spiraling plunge. 

George had just had time to consider that burning wreckage raining down upon them wouldn't really be much of an improvement over the whole aircraft dropping on them in a single piece, when a black-and silver figure came screaming in from his peripheral vision. It blasted the rocket out of the sky and grabbed for the aircraft, which was about when George recognized the silver-and-black shape as War Machine, otherwise known as Tony's friend Lt. Col. Rhodes. 

Balder glanced up with them as War Machine dragged the aircraft away across the sky, then called to his troop to stand fast as another wave of Hydra troops-- honestly, where were all these soldiers coming from, surely there weren't this many truly evil people in the _world_ \-- came at them. 

The Aesir soldiers stood, and George, Mitchell, and Coulson with them, but you did not have to be a student of military tactics to know they were going to be overrun. George found himself desperately wishing lycanthropy worked like whatever the Hulk had, so he could turn whenever he needed to and could also be _aimed._

And then, from the Aesir's right flank, came a blast of icy air, and _bellowing,_ and a division (or whatever they called it) of Jotun troops came at the charge, straight into the Hydra force. If you'd told George a year ago that _ice_ could be a deadly weapon, he wouldn't have believed it. He didn't think _Canadians_ would believe you could wreak as much havoc with icy spears and clubs as the Jotun were doing. 

"Never thought of this before," Balder puffed with gallows glee, "but when the Jotun are our allies, it's dead easy to tell who's on our side. I just hope _they_ can tell the difference between _us_ and those Hydra troops!"

George cast a sideways glance at the raging blue giants and could only, as the song would put it, second that emotion.

~oOo~

Ben had polished off the remaining crew, and came charging back up the aisle just as Captain America dove out the open hatch. Ben was close enough to have grabbed him, pulled him back, but he since was clearly acting with a purpose, Ben left him to it. Stumbling against the bulkhead as the plane banked, he went on to help Reed on the flight deck. 

And arrived just in time, by the look of it: Reed was wrapped around the pilot, who looked like Dr. Strange but was obviously one of the shapeshifting aliens they'd been warned about. Left unattended, the control wheel had apparently been bumped, and the descending uncoordinated turn was rapidly becoming a spiral dive. Ben and Reed could survive a crash themselves, but it would be bad news for anyone on the ground below them, so ordinarily Ben would have grabbed the controls and leveled them out. 

At the moment, getting control of the aircraft was suddenly the last thing on Ben's mind. Just as he arrived in the doorway, the alien dropped its transformation and turned into a big red squashy _thing_ that clutched Reed with what looked like three-fingered paws and then stuck out its _tongue_ , which extended about two feet and was suddenly shaped like a drill, and-- 

Reed stretched his neck desperately, trying to avoid whatever the hell the Dire Wraith planned to do to him, and Ben charged. 

He could feel the plane leveling out underneath them but had no time to think about why that might be happening as he launched himself into the twisting pile consisting of his friend and their enemy. 

The Dire Wraith let go of Reed and grabbed Ben. 

Everything lit up before Ben's eyes, and then a red curtain descended. 

~oOo~

Rhodey fell back more in surprise than alarm as the Thing came bellowing at him out of the Hydra aircraft, a big red squashy lump clinging to his back, Mr. Fantastic wrapped around both of them. It took a startled moment for Rhodey to realize the Thing wasn't trying to dislodge the-- _Dire Wraith?_ It had to be a Dire Wraith-- 

The Thing wasn't trying to get rid of the Dire Wraith. He was trying to get _at_ Rhodey. 

And then, of course, Rhodey remembered the briefing: both the warning about keeping out of the clutches of the Wraiths, and Tony's own story about his Wraith prisoner getting loose and what it made Thor do to his brother. _Oh, shit,_ did not even begin to cover this situation. 

Rhodey got airborne as the Thing jumped at him, hovered and fired a repulsor. Which turned out to be several different kinds of bad idea, because it also hit Mr. Fantastic and knocked him out cold-- although at least he lost his grip on the Thing and the Wraith and fell clear, which all things considered was a good thing, especially since he fell to the roof and not several storeys to the street below-- besides enraging both the Thing and the Dire Wraith. And it didn't even slow the Thing down: the next thing Rhodey knew, the rock-like hands were clenched around his ankle with a grip like… well, granite. And it was just _ridiculous_ how much the Thing weighed. 

Hoping to shake both of them-- or at least the still-clinging Dire Wraith-- loose, Rhodey dove toward the only street he could see that wasn't filled with combatants. Just above the deck, he reversed power and shot back up into the sky. 

Not only did he not manage to shake the Thing loose, Rhodey was suddenly aware of the magicked superhero climbing hand-over-hand _up his legs._

What the Thing might do if he started tearing at the controls of the War Machine suit, in the state he was in, just did not bear thinking about. The suit was damn near impervious to damage, but _damn near_ wasn't anything like the same as _completely._ And Rhodey was uncomfortably conscious that the suit had a squishy, vulnerable centre. 

Rhodey headed for altitude in a corkscrewing barrel roll, and then felt himself yanked right off his flight path as something heavy and moving fast hit the Thing. 

~oOo~

Tony wasn't keeping tabs on Rhodey because he didn't trust him. In fact, Tony wasn't keeping tabs on Rhodey at all, really. It was just that the airspace was getting a little congested, what with the Dire Wraith aircraft and the Hydra aircraft and War Machine and that flaming showoff the Human Torch, so Tony was prudently keeping his head up and trying to monitor where all the other flying objects were, be they friendly or foely. The last thing he wanted in the middle of a battle was a midair collision he hadn’t planned out in advance. 

And so, in the course of keeping tabs on the other fliers in his general vicinity, Tony saw Rhodey wrangling the diving aircraft. Tony also took note of him bulldogging it onto a nearby roof. 

Which should have been the end of it, but a few seconds later, when he did another check of his airspace, Tony also saw Rhodey blasting back into the sky with something hanging from his legs. That was weird enough to call for a second look, which was when Tony realized Rhodey was under attack by the Thing, who was under attack by a Dire Wraith. 

Tony immediately changed direction and went charging to the rescue. It wasn't that he didn't trust Rhodey, obviously, but it was evident Rhodey more than had his hands full. 

Tony looped around and came up under Rhodey and his... passengers, extended his left fist, and drove into the Thing's stomach as hard as he could. The blow almost fractured his hand right through the armoured glove, knocked Rhodey sideways in the air, and did absolutely nothing to shake the Thing-- or more importantly, the Dire Wraith-- loose. 

Rhodey righted himself in the air as Tony grabbed for the Thing again, only to have himself kicked loose by a huge granite foot. Tony dropped well below War Machine, hovered to take stock of the situation, and then realized that he was approaching this all wrong. 

He powered back up and rose toward the trio. This time, he caught hold of the Dire Wraith, latching onto its tail and trying to pull it loose. The Thing twisted around and swung at him, but Tony was able to partially block the blow and retain his grip. He swung from the tail, almost like a kid from a rope swing, where you make a big arc out over the pond and then let go. 

Tony didn't let go. And the Dire Wraith wasn't like the pet lizard Tony had as a kid, which on one terrifying occasion had left its tail in Tony's hand and caused him for an awful few hours, until he did some research, to think he'd done irreparable harm to his only friend. No, the Wraith's tail stayed attached to the Wraith, and Tony stayed attached to the Wraith's tail. And then he transferred his hold to of one of the Wraith's legs-- back legs?-- and eventually, mercifully, he felt the creature starting to peel loose. 

The Wraith lashed at him with its tail, wriggled around to try and do that drill-tongue stunt. Tony actually flinched, a purely animal-level reaction to the idea of having that happen to him again. But he flinched inside the suit, and the suit was more than proof against the Wraith's assault. 

The Wraith was no quitter, however. It suddenly released the Thing and latched onto Tony. From the corner of his eye, Tony could see the Thing suddenly let go of Rhodey, confused and disoriented like Thor had been when Wilbur's attack on him ended. Rhodey was taken by surprise, and maybe didn't yet completely understand what was happening, so he didn't reverse jets to catch him quite as smartly as he probably should have.

The Thing plummeted earthward, which probably wouldn't have killed him but might have been very unpleasant both for him, and for whoever happened to be underneath him when he landed. 

And then the Human Torch came streaking out of nowhere and grabbed him, then directed his fall onto a conveniently-placed rooftop trampoline that turned out to be the recovered Mr. Fantastic. 

All this took place in the space of a few heartbeats, and Tony never really lost his focus on the Wraith. The creature was obviously trying to put one of its contact spells on him, the same kind it had used on Thor and the Thing.

Except, of course, Tony was in the suit, and whether it was the armour itself or the protective forcefields that always operated, contact magic couldn't get through. The Wraith stubbornly continued trying and the suit stubbornly continued to repel him, and Tony gave some lightning-fast consideration to what he should do next.

One obvious possibility was finishing the Wraith off with a blow to the head. As far as Tony was concerned, such an action would be perfectly defensible. And besides, if they took the Wraith prisoner, with Tony's luck Loki would give it a _name_ and get _attached_ to it-- really, _someone_ should have had pets as a kid, was all Tony could say, so he wouldn't keep trying to make up for it now. It wasn't that Loki was stupid, of course he wasn't, it was just that, in Tony's experience of him anyway, he didn't always have a lot of _sense_ \-- 

Anyway, there was no telling what kind of trouble trying to take this thing prisoner would lead to. They'd certainly learned these creatures couldn't safely be contained, at least not with the kind of restraints they currently had on hand. 

"Tony," came Rhodey's voice in his helmet, "that Wraith was aboard the big Hydra ship that just went down. I think I saw Captain America dive out of it a few seconds before I got there. He was going after someone in a Hydra uniform."

 _Someone in a Hydra uniform..._ That almost had to be the Red Skull. There was no one else Steve would _throw himself out of a crashing airplane_ to pursue. If the fugitive had been some regular Hydra minion, Steve would at least have stuck around to try and regain control of the plane. 

And that changed things with regard to this Wraith.

"So this might be one of the higher-ranking Wraiths," Tony concluded. No guarantees, obviously, but it didn't seem like the Wraiths to assign one of their members to act as a lackey to the Red Skull. No, it seemed to Tony far more likely that a ranking Wraith would accompany the Red Skull, to reinforce the idea of an alliance of equals, at least until they turned on each other. 

Okay, if that was the case, then it was worth the risk to try to hang onto this one. Tony used his navigational systems to find the Avengers' command site. As he did so, he radioed ahead:

"I'm coming in with a Wraith prisoner for questioning. Does anyone know where Loki is right now?" In spite of his irrational, although admittedly kind of endearing, tendency to develop misplaced sympathy for things that really _were_ monsters, Loki was still the best member of the Avengers' team to interview this prisoner. He was the only member of their force who had ever held a conversation with a Wraith, and between his greater experience with them and his talent for spotting lies told by others, Loki was the only one with a chance to be able to tell whether this one lied to them. He'd admitted previously that he didn't know the "tells" of the species yet, but maybe he could use his experiences with Wilbur to put this one into perspective.

"Nope," came Fury's voice in his helmet. "He's with Tyr's force, but we don't know exactly where they are right now."

"Okay," Tony replied. "Do you know where Annie is?"

~oOo~

Clint and his companions were distracted from the crashing Hydra aircraft when the two little figures came tumbling out of the open hatch. 

"Shit. _Shit,_ that's _Cap,_ " Clint yelled. 

"He can probably survive the fall," Mystique pointed out, with cold-blooded reasonableness. "Unlike whoever that plane lands on."

She was still speaking when War Machine came screaming in and grabbed the plane out of the air. And War Machine was still wrestling with the aircraft when below them, suddenly, Cap and the second figure stopped falling. 

This obviously wasn't unexpected, everyone stops falling _eventually_ , even Loki had. What _was_ unexpected was the fact they stopped falling _in mid-air_. Even from two hundred feet below them, Clint could recognize the flash of surprise on both faces. 

And then, apparently, they realized someone on one side or the other-- probably the Avengers'-- had thrown a forcefield or a spell at them to arrest their descent. After a moment they started to fall again, but this time slowly, as if they were in an old and creaky elevator. This gave Cap a chance to sort of air-swim his way over to the other figure, and a moment later the two of them were battling again in mid-air.

Well, since they didn't seem to be needed to deal with that situation, Clint looked around and spotted a knot of Aesir and Jotun troops a short distance away, engaged in what looked like mop-up after a pitched engagement. After a second he recognized Coulson and a couple of Loki's friends in the middle of the group. Coulson and Loki's pals seemed to be trying to aim a rocket launcher at Cap and his adversary, which just did not look like a good idea to Clint. 

"What are you doing?" he demanded, as he and the two women ran up to the group.

Coulson glanced over, matter-of-fact as ever. "That's the Red Skull," he explained coolly. "I'm trying to figure out how to target him without risking injury to Cap."

"Let me see what I can do," Clint suggested, unslinging his bow. "How have things been here?" 

"Fine," Coulson said levelly, his tone implying _for a given value of "fine."_ "We were in some trouble a little while ago, but Vog and Byrnjolf-- " he indicated two particularly hard-bitten-looking Jotun who were discussing something with an almost equally hard-bitten-looking Aesir soldier-- "arrived with their squads."

"So they bailed out an Aesir troop?" Tash asked. "I would have expected them to leave each other to take their own chances."

"Doesn't seem to have been sentiment behind the action. Apparently their king made a deal with the Allfather, to trade cooperation here for a new treaty with Asgard, and the return of some artifact that seems to be really important to their people," Coulson explained. "Whatever it is, the Jotun appear to be motivated to be as helpful as possible. How are you doing there?" he asked Clint. 

"Fine, if I can get some separation between them," Clint replied, holding his firing posture and continuing to track the slowly-falling figures. "Tash, Misty, you want to stick around and help these guys?"

"Sure," Tash shrugged, recognizing Clint's question as genuine, rather than an ill-advised attempt to give them orders. 

"Why not," replied Mystique. "Also, call me that one more time and you'll be carrying your arrows in a quiver made from your own intestines."

Clint grinned and continued to track Captain America and his adversary.

~oOo~

Annie was perfectly capable of taking part in the battle. Everyone knew that. It wasn't as if she got shrieky or girly under pressure. Or at least, it wasn't as if she let getting shrieky and girly interfere with her ability to fight. She didn't _like_ to fight, obviously, and admittedly she wasn't very good at it, at least not compared to Asgardian warriors who had been trained to it for hundreds of years. Still, for a former barmaid who'd never even worked in a really rough pub when she was alive, Annie could hold her own. Honestly.

So it wasn't that she _couldn't_ take part in the battle. With that said, Annie could at least admit to herself that she wasn't at all sorry when Helblindi showed up with the second wave of Jotun troops and asked her to help the Aesir healers. 

It was not, Helblindi explained carefully, that he distrusted the Aesir. It was simply that the Jotun did not have a great many healers of their own-- Annie didn't ask whether that was Loki's fault or whether they had lost the skill over the centuries of decay since the war-- and the Aesir healers could not touch wounded Jotun soldiers without harm to themselves. As Annie had proved when Loki transformed before her, that wasn't a problem for her. 

And also, Helblindi added, whatever he felt about the Aesir, he did trust _her._

Even had she been keen to fight, Annie would have found it very hard to turn down a request like that. She here she was, following instructions from the Aesir healer named Eir, doing her best to look after whatever injured Jotun were brought to them. The more of them she saw, the less alarming any of them seemed. 

She was bandaging a head wound for a boy-- it was still hard for her to guess Jotun ages, but she had the impression from his manner, and the way the companions who brought him in spoke to him, that he was probably young-- who was a bit stunned and confused and wanted to tell her about his village, when one of Eir's assistants came in. 

"Excuse me, ma'am, but Miss Annie is needed at the Avengers' command centre." The young man spoke as if each individual word was familiar to him but he had no idea what they meant all strung together. And he carefully did not look directly at Annie or her patient. 

"Me?" Annie spoke up. "What do they need me for?" The young healer glanced at Eir, and Annie said in her firmest voice, "If you have a message for me, speak to me, please." To her intense annoyance, the young man looked at Eir again, and only when she nodded did he address Annie:

"Director Fury-- " again, he spoke as if the title was unfamiliar and clumsy in his mouth-- "needs you to locate Prince Loki and send him to the command centre."

The injured Jotun youngster, and both his friends, stiffened at the mention of the name. Annie compressed her lips and reminded herself that Loki would be the first to remind her the Jotun had every right to continue hating him. 

"There, Kolfinn, good as new," she told her patient, finishing up with the bandage. She glanced at his friends. "He's going to have to stay here and recuperate. The Jotun wounded are over that way-- " pointing-- "so if you'd help him... "

"Certainly," rumbled the taller Jotun, Valgard. He looked tempted to say more, most probably about the advisability of Annie remaining on her guard when dealing with the iniquitous prince of Asgard, but something in her face discouraged him. Instead, he made a little bow to her and, along with his friend, helped Kolfinn to his feet. Annie, feeling badly about the chill that had descended on their brief relationship, patted Kolfinn's hand. 

"You'll be perfectly all right in a little while, just take care for now. You've done your bit." 

Kolfinn grimaced at her-- Annie was becoming convinced that smiles were not natural Jotun expressions, but they were very quick to realize hers were kindly meant and try to mirror them back as best they could-- and went away with his friends. 

Annie took a moment to orient herself and cast out what amounted to a supernatural net, feeling for known and loved consciousnesses. 

"Found him," she said aloud, partly to Eir, and vanished. 

~oOo~

Steve didn't waste much time being surprised when the spell or forcefield or whatever broke his fall and the Red Skull's. After an initial startled moment, he and the Red Skull grappled with each other again as they resumed their fall. 

"I find it rather amusing, all these years later, to find you still as naïve as ever," the Red Skull grunted, his voice slightly constricted from the headlock Steve had him in. He twisted, somehow finding purchase in the air to throw Steve over his shoulder and slip the hold. 

"You haven't changed much yourself," Steve replied dryly. 

He was just about to grab for the Red Skull again when there was a hissing sound, and the Red Skull rocked backward under a violent blow. 

Steve just had time to register the shaft of one of Clint's explosive arrows protruding from the Red Skull's tunic, when the world exploded all around them. 

~oOo~

Loki glanced up as the Hydra aircraft opened fire on ground positions, but before he could do anything about it himself, Steve and two of the Fantastic Four were aboard. 

A few moments later, Steve and another figure came plunging out of the aircraft and plummeted toward the ground. Loki was still hoarding his magic as much as possible, fighting hand-to-hand instead, but this was the sort of occasion for which he had been protecting the magic in the first place. He reached up and cast what he would have described to his friends as an _arresto momentum_ spell, such as could be seen in _Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban._ Loki had not actually learned any new magic from the stories of Harry Potter, but he would be the first to admit he had indeed gotten some new ideas for ways to use the magic he already possessed. 

Steve and his opponent came to a smooth stop in the air, and then continued their fall at a much safer, really quite sedate, pace. The spell being self-contained, Loki was able to leave them to it and direct his attention back to the opposing army. 

"They are led by disguised Dire Wraiths," he reported to the young officer commanding the company to which he was attached. "Tell your men to target the leaders' heads."

The officer's mouth compressed in displeasure at the idea of taking instruction from the banished traitor, but both Tyr and Thor had made it very clear insubordination would not be tolerated. For his part, Loki was making an honest effort not to draw attention to himself unless it was necessary. 

The officer nodded curtly and turned away. Loki ruthlessly squashed any stirrings of resentment-- he had certainly earned such distrust, and worse-- and was focusing on the approaching enemy when Annie appeared at his elbow. For once, her sudden appearance actually startled him. 

"Sorry," Annie said hastily. "Fury needs you for something at the command centre."

Loki glanced at the officer and--not entirely to his surprise-- was waved away with something like relief. Annie looked like she badly wanted to comment on the other man's reaction, but Loki caught her by the hand and directed her attention back toward him. 

"Certainly," he said. "We will go immediately."

There was a flash, and the officer found himself standing alone.


	33. Chapter 33

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Notes:** In which we deal with peril as best we can, and canon artifacts behave in ways which serve the plot. (Also certain characteristics of such artifacts have been… creatively interpreted.) I'd appreciate if you'd just go with it. 
> 
> **Warnings:** There may be some angst in with the action. Oh, and **Character death.** Sorry about that.

Loki and Annie arrived at the command centre to find Tony and Nick Fury fidgeting in obvious apprehension. This was not like either of them, and indeed, seeing Fury in such a state affected Loki much as seeing Odin in a similar condition of anxiety would: he did not know what there was to be afraid of, but afraid he was. 

And he would be a poor Liesmith if he let these two mortals see _that_. Casting a swift glance of reassurance and entreaty toward Annie-- he would not even try to fool Annie--Loki walked up to Tony. "Yes?"

"We’ve captured a Dire Wraith-- we believe he might be pretty high-ranking," Tony explained, "and we thought he should be interviewed."

Loki frowned momentarily, and then his face cleared as he understood. "Ah. And you felt I might be of some assistance, in determining whether his answers are truthful?"

"Something like that," Tony agreed. 

"Very well," Loki nodded. "Where is he?"

Tony inclined his head toward the mobile command vehicle, but when Loki took a step forward, Tony grabbed him by the elbow. "Just a second."

Loki looked down at the elbow, then back up at Tony, arching an eyebrow in his best impersonation of himself in a state of disinterested inquiry. "Yes?" he repeated. 

Tony fidgeted some more. "It's just that-- "

"The Wraith's taken on a form Tony thinks might upset you," Fury broke in. Loki sent his second eyebrow up to join the first. The form of what? A Jotun? His father? His… other father? 

Without further explanation, Fury gestured to Loki to follow. Loki did, like a foolish little duckling, leaving Tony and Annie outside, and climbing into the back of the command truck behind Fury. A nervous-looking SHIELD guard-- his facemask mercifully raised so that Loki could see his face (and that he _had_ a face)-- stepped out of the way. 

Sitting in a straight chair was… well, it had to be the Dire Wraith. However, it had apparently shapeshifted into what Loki could only surmise was the form it had taken during the bulk of its mission. And despite being already on his guard, he felt coldness in the pit of his stomach as the thing smiled at him. 

"How pleasant to see you again," said the Wraith, in the voice and form of Dr. Strange. 

~oOo~

Steve's vision cleared as he hit the ground-- not hard enough to more than wind him a little, but awkwardly nevertheless. He shook his head, then glanced around for what he sincerely and viciously hoped would be bits and pieces of the Red Skull scattered across several city blocks. 

"Looking for me?" asked a voice, and Steve just had time to curse the damned super-soldier formula-- yes, he knew without it he'd be dead a dozen times over, but at least _so would the Red Skull_ \-- before the Red Skull was on him, ragged and battered but still in once piece and still determined. 

Well, Steve was determined and in one piece, himself. 

The Red Skull landed on him, hands seeking Steve's throat and knees trying to knock the air out of Steve's lungs. Steve twisted under him, right hand groping for a weapon. He came up with a chunk of masonry that had fallen from a damaged building, and smashed it into the side of the Red Skull's head. The fingers knotted at his throat came loose and Steve rolled sideways, taking his enemy with him. He started to scramble to his feet and the Red Skull yanked him back down, an elbow caught him in the jaw and pain sang up through his head and down his neck. Steve felt for his shield, where in hell was his shield, and then there were hands on his throat again, leathery and dry, as dry as his mouth, and he couldn't breathe and sparkles were flashing before his eyes--

And then he was being lifted-- no, _yanked_ \-- into the air, the hands on his throat torn away and a tremendous sensation of _cold_ , so cold it _burned_ , washing through his body. 

And then Steve was sprawled on the ground again, looking up, like a kid who had fallen off his bicycle and was trying to catch his breath. Not ten feet away was the Red Skull, also on the ground but coiling to leap to his feet, to attack again. 

And, looming over both of them, tall and terrible, was a great blue figure like something out of one of Loki's worst nightmares, huge and craggy-faced, with an unrelenting gaze. He looked down at both of them and Steve experienced a sensation of defenselessness, of being a child confronted by a monster…

And then the jolt of primal terror was replaced with relief as he _recognized_ the blue giant, as the newcomer turned from a monster to a person. Helblindi, the former Hydra prisoner, the old Jotun counselor Annie was fond of, flicked a glance over Steve, as if reminding himself who the red-white-and-blue figure was. Steve could almost see the Jotun classify him: _Annie's friend_ , and dismiss him from further consideration. 

Because, of course, _Annie's friends_ were those the Jotun had pledged to assist in their fight. And, Steve realized, with a momentary flash of shame for his own self-centredness, that fight was, of course, against the alliance that had tried to turn the Jotun into pawns, to destroy them, as an incidental part of their scheme against Midg-- Earth. 

Steve looked up at the stern crimson eyes and, in spite of being a super soldier and a superhero and _Captain America_ , he was suddenly, unspeakably, grateful there was no misunderstanding about his own position right at this minute. 

The Red Skull lunged to his feet, his malicious grin somehow more evil than ever, still apparently fearless in his arrogance. 

"The last remnants of a subhuman people, come to the aid of a collection of mutants and misfits. How amusing," he sneered. 

Helblindi's own lips pulled back from his teeth. Had Annie been present to see him, Steve was quite sure she would not believe this was a smile. 

"How diverting indeed," the great Jotun rumbled. The Red Skull, eyes pinned to his huge new adversary, gestured as though conjuring some sort of power. At the same moment Helblindi also signaled, as though calling something to him. He turned his head slightly and his ruby eyes focused on Steve. "Move away."

Steve made an ungainly and instinctive scramble to put more distance between himself and the other two. And then Helblindi was holding… something… an object obscured by his great hands but glowing with a fierce blue-white light. _Bigger than a bread box_ , as Steve's mother used to say, not that anyone seemed to have bread boxes anymore, not that Steve had seen, and--

The cold that swept past Steve made the grasp of Helblindi, a moment earlier, feel like his mother's arms when he was a child. It made the icy prison where Steve had slept for seven decades seem like his bed in the Avengers' Mansion, under the heavy goosedown duvet that kept away any chill. It was Arctic cold, deep-space cold, cold beyond the scope of synonyms or language. It was simply Cold. 

And yet, even as he was aware of that, Steve was also aware that it passed him by, did not touch him. He could feel that the Cold was there, but he… could not feel _it._

And in that blink of awareness, the Cold hit the Red Skull. His grinning scarlet face turned blue, and then translucent white, and Helblindi's hands were empty, just for an instant, and then, held in the right, was a tremendous club made of shining white ice. 

He took a step forward, uttering a terrible roar that shook Steve to his vitals, pinning him in place with an atavistic terror of… _cold, alone, wasteland, merciless…_

The club swung down, and where the Red Skull had stood there was a burst of what looked like light, but was, Steve realized, shattered crystals of ice, tiny and sparkling, which were blown away by the last remnants of the surging power…

And then the Cold was gone, and the Red Skull was gone, and Steve was still in the street, sitting up dazedly, trying to believe what he had just seen. 

"Can you rise?" asked a guttural, concerned voice some fifteen feet above him. Steve looked up, momentarily unable to speak, and on Helblindi's face was the expression he probably wore when he looked at Annie. "I would offer to assist you, but it is probably safer if I summon some of your comrades." 

"I… No, thank you," Steve stammered, feeling tiny and foolish and somehow very safe. He scrambled to his feet and looked up at the Jotun. "Was that the-- ?"

"We keep our word, and the Allfather has kept his," Helblindi replied, and his answer was confirmation enough that the Casket of Ancient Winters had been returned. 

"Can you use it to-- ?" Steve began. 

"To defeat the rest of your enemies?" Helblindi shook his head. "Alas, no. Its power can be harnessed for brief, targeted attacks like that one, but had you been any nearer the strike, I could not have answered for your safety. And if opened and fully unleashed, the Casket would create in this world the lost majesty of Jotunheim." Helblindi frankly smiled at Steve, and added in a nearly conspiratorial tone, "And then, of course, none but we Jotun would be able to live here." There was really nothing funny about the remark, at least not considering what Steve had recently learned about the history of the Jotun on Earth, but he found himself sharing a small chuckle with the old giant. 

Sobering, Helblindi went on, "Laufey always claimed that was his error, in the first war: he tried to preserve the mortals while conquering their realm. He never said whether he planned to make them servants or simply let them try to live their lives. He did tell me it was a mistake he would not have made a second time. Which is, of course, why our people have huddled in darkness for nearly a thousand years: having taken away the source of Laufey's power, Odin Allfather was not so great a fool as to return it to him, regardless of the consequences to Laufey's people."

"Surely you're bitter about that?" Steve asked, looking up at Helblindi. 

The Jotun shrugged. "We are not the first people to suffer for the follies of our king." Steve, remembering the more recent suffering of the Jotun people, reflected that the Jotun also had the bad luck to suffer for the follies of foreign kings-- or anyway princes, assuming they counted Loki as foreign. 

Steve looked around again, and not even a glitter of sleet remained of the Red Skull. "Is he really-- ?"

"Gone? Dead?" Helblindi shrugged again. "Perhaps. At worst, he has been removed as a factor in this battle, and that is cause for cheer. And now we will see what further help we may offer, yes?"

"Sure," Steve replied, still a little dazed, and followed Helblindi, toward the rising sounds of fighting a short distance away.

~oOo~

"You will pardon me if I do not return the sentiment?" Loki replied, and the Dire Wraith with the face of Dr. Strange raised an eyebrow. 

"Oh, really," he rebuked. "You are practically victorious already. Surely you can spare a little magnanimity to the vanquished?"

Loki thought he could perhaps be pardoned for not taking the Wraith's word that victory for his allies was at hand. The Wraith, still wearing Strange's face, looked at him with the expression Loki remembered from that night in the storage bunker in Scotland. It made him feel cold all the way to his marrow. 

Shaking his head, the Wraith smiled the same unpleasant smile Loki remembered. "We could have had such good times together, you know. And now, alas, all that is left is for me to have one last bit of fun with you."

Loki had just been on the point of acceding to Fury's significant glares and allowing the SHIELD director to get on with the actual questioning. But the Wraith's tone captured his attention: it was the sound of someone conceding defeat and yet still vindictive enough to look forward to one final act of cruelty. 

"Indeed?" Loki prompted, because the hairs were standing up on the back of his neck and somehow he knew this was not a lie, not a bluff. Whatever the Wraith had up his sleeve and in his heart was real, and it was going to happen to Loki, and what Loki wanted to know was who _else_ it was going to hurt. 

The Wraith's nasty smile widened. "Stories are such powerful things, are they not? If one was to read the Midgardian stories about you, one might expect you to be a creature of tremendous power, treachery, trickery. And yet, like the beings who made up the stories in the first place… prone to vulnerability." Loki kept his face perfectly still, like stone, though he knew that was a tell in itself-- he simply did not have sufficient strength to pretend not to care what the Wraith meant. 

The creature waited-- and Loki crumbled. From far away, he heard himself ask, "And what vulnerabilities might those be?" _Who_ , he meant. _Who_ might they be?

The Wraith smirked.

"I was always rather interested in that tale about how you brought about the end of all things. Ragnarok-- such a wonderful name for ultimate chaos. It even _sounds_ chaotic, does it not? And I found myself wondering what sort of power you might be able to wield, a little creature with such unexpected resilience, should you find yourself in the same predicament as the Loki in the stories. I'm sure that pretty ghost would be willing to hold the bowl above your face. For a while, at any rate."

Loki did not move, could not speak, remembering the horrible story of the serpent's venom and the binding and the _entrails_ , and all he could wonder was, _Whose entrails did the Wraith have in mind?_

"It was a bit of a problem, however, you having no children, but had we world enough and time-- " the Wraith's smile was like a blade, and Loki could almost feel it at his throat-- "we could have waited for the full of the moon, and for that beast whose home you share to become a ravening wolf without any interference needed. But the problem, you see, is that even if he tore your sharp-toothed friend to the appropriate shreds, I am not at all certain a vampire's entrails would be suitable for the purpose. I have the impression they tend to dissolve into dust when their animating… whatever it is… leaves them. No, that simply would not do."

Loki was silent, and behind him Nick Fury was silent too, and the Wraith was unable to contain himself any longer, went on with vicious glee:

"But, you see, there was one story left. One little story, after the end of everything else. Do you remember it? You had other children, in the stories. Monstrous children, the stuff of nightmares. And the last of your children whose story was told was the great serpent Jormungandr, who dwelt in the oceans circling Midgard, coiled around the earth, with his own tail in his mouth. When the end came, the serpent let go, and rose from the ocean, and fought-- " The Wraith paused, and blinked in synthetic innocence. "Why, I believe he fought... well, there have been so many versions of the story, and the relationships were not the same in each, but for the sake of convenience we will say: he fought his own uncle." 

Loki inhaled sharply, he could not help it. He stood frozen as the Wraith smiled kindly-- an expression far more frightening than any other he had worn so far on the face of Dr. Strange-- and went on, 

"You need not worry. Your... brother, as you call him, is victorious. He slays the serpent. 

"He then takes nine steps. 

"And falls dead."

From outside the truck, the sounds of battle were replaced by the sound of screaming-- not combatants, but some dreadful inhuman creature, calling for blood. And getting closer. 

The Wraith, with a look of intense satisfaction, spelled out the end of his story: 

"We unfortunately lack the means to provide this story with a World Serpent, but the Deathwing is also cold-blooded and should serve the purpose. Perhaps fortunately for it, the creature does not know it is doomed. It will surely be killed, but only by magic, and then its doom will rebound upon its slayer." The Wraith paused, as if waiting for Loki to offer an opinion, then went on, "Do you suppose these Avengers will allow your brother to take it on alone, with his magical hammer, and watch him succumb to his fate? Or will they insist on trying to help him, though they all die in the attempt? I really do not know which course is most to be wished for."

Loki whirled, shoved Nick Fury out of the way, and bolted from the command truck with the sound of the Wraith's laughter ringing in his ears. 

~oOo~

Outside, it took Loki only a moment to locate the source of the dreadful, predatory noises. Darkening the western sky was a vast black creature, eyes glowing yellow, like a great prehistoric flying reptile. Its spread wings nearly blotted out the sun, and it stretched its neck down toward the combatants and screamed horribly. Loki and some of the Avengers had, in the not-too-distant past, battled a dragon, but this creature was worse. The dragon had been a conjuration by a sorcerer so far gone in mental anguish that even its efforts to kill him had not been very threatening, as such things went. It had been dangerous, but more desperate than evil, when all was said and done.

This beast-- bird-- flying reptile, or dinosaur, or whatever one might call it-- was in its right mind, and had been conjured by beings far more evil than desperate. As it soared toward the field of battle, two military attack helicopters rose to confront it.

The Deathwing _screamed_ at them, and they were... gone. Simply gone. 

Loki heard a familiar sound at his side and turned to see Tony Stark lowering his facemask and powering up his suit. This time it was Loki who caught hold of an elbow. 

"Tony, no," he shouted. "It is a creature of magic. You cannot defeat it, and it will kill you."

"Well, what the hell do you want me to do?" Tony shouted back. 

Loki blinked at him, and knew what he had to do. Of course. It was so perfectly simple, really...

"Tell the others," Loki commanded, releasing Tony's arm. "Tell them not to try to fight it. I will... this is what magical consultants are _for_."

And then he used a handful of the magic he had been so carefully husbanding-- because really, why else had he been saving it?-- and transported himself to the location below which the Deathwing circled and cried. 

Coulson, George, and Mitchell were loading the rocket launcher when Loki appeared next to them. 

"That will not do you any good," Loki announced, and George, who had not heard him arrive, jumped and nearly dropped the shell he was holding. 

"What do you suggest we do, then?" Coulson asked, his aggravated tone the only clue he would give that he was badly frightened. 

"Nothing," Loki replied. "I suggest you do nothing. This being has a curse upon it, and you cannot kill it, though it can certainly kill you. Leave this to me." He smiled confidently at his friends, avoiding the suddenly penetrating look in Mitchell's eyes, squared his silly horned supervillain's helmet upon his head, and turned to the assembled troops. Old Balder was there, standing in company with two Jotun who had the same tough, career-soldier look about them, and Loki gratefully addressed him. "Where are your officers?"

"Dead, sir," Balder explained laconically. "Myself and Vog and Byrnjolf here are the best we've got until reinforcements arrive."

Loki felt himself relax. Thank the Norns. He would be able to reason with Balder. And then, by the looks of it, Balder could reason with the two Jotun sergeants, or whatever was the equivalent rank. 

"Very well, Balder," he said, "I need your troops to stand down. There is little you can do here except to die."

Balder's weathered face went very still. "That might be our duty, then, sir."

 _Damn_. Stupid, honourable, faint-hope Asgardian pride. Loki glanced up at the approaching creature and another tactic occurred to him. 

"Balder-- " he could not remember the man's surname, if he had ever known it: back in the old days, when the troops let him spar with them, Loki had called them by their given names and they had called him "youngster." With a peculiar twist in his chest, Loki repeated, "Balder," and then, speaking very gently: "know this. I have been banished, but I have not been disowned. I am therefore still a prince of the house of Odin, and I am ordering you to withdraw your troops and stand them down." _Please._ He looked around at the Jotun sergeants and added, "I ask the same of you. There is nothing in your treaty with the Allfather that requires your lives to be thrown away."

There was some shuffling in the ranks as the three noncommissioned officers considered the situation: it was evident that not all the soldiers of either race were reluctant to accept the lifeline Loki offered. And then Vog-- Loki was quite sure he was the one Balder had indicated as Vog-- spoke:

"Our treaty with the Allfather depends upon us not harming you."

"You are not harming me," Loki argued, hoping the man's devotion to duty would not impair his ability to see sense. "My understanding is that the Allfather demanded you not personally injure me, not that you protect me from my own actions. That would indeed be a full-time job." He cast what he hoped was a level gaze around at the three sergeants and willed them to just please do as he asked. 

Balder exchanged what could only be described as speaking glances with the two Jotun, gave Loki a long and piercing look-- and then saluted. "Sir," he said simply, turned to his men, and began to issue orders that resulted in their retreat to a slightly safer distance. The Jotun troops followed suit, although preserving enough separation to make it clear the new accord between their sergeants did not necessarily extend to the general population. Still, Loki thought, it was something. 

He was studying the Deathwing, trying to figure out the most efficient means of attacking it, when Balder called to him again. 

"Sir?" Loki nearly snarled at him, but the old soldier was standing with Byrnjolf, and both of them looked serious. "Sir, Byrnjolf says that old Helblindi is here somewhere, and there's a rumour he's got that casket the Jotun set such store by. He says it has more than enough power to finish this creature off, if you'll just wait until someone can find him."

Loki only just restrained himself from uttering every curse word he had ever learned on Midgard or Asgard. And then, because he had to, he resorted to the unvarnished truth as he addressed Byrnjolf:

"Indeed it could, but the problem is, this creature is cursed, and whatever magic is used to destroy it will then in turn destroy its killer. There is every possibility that would include the Casket of Ancient Winters. I do not know what sort of damage, if any, would result from the Casket's destruction here on Midgard, but if such a thing was to happen, it would render all your sacrifices pointless. Do not permit him to attempt to use the Casket on this creature. I don't care how you do it, but stop him."

The Deathwing screamed again, down toward them, and Loki, remembering the helicopters, reached for magic. He cast it like a blanket over the others: friends, Aesir troops and Jotun alike. The deadly cry slid off the protective spell and left its targets unharmed.

And then Loki was himself rising into the air, using a flying spell he had never before used on Midgard. He rose directly in front of the Deathwing's great beaked face and cast up a shield as it shrieked at him, then dropped the protection as he flitted toward the side of its head and threw a killing spell at the back of its neck. 

The creature shuddered under the attack, but withstood it. Loki had expected that, a spell that would kill a human or even a Jotun would still not be powerful enough to seriously inconvenience a monster like this. It would be the death of a thousand cuts, if he succeeded at all. 

The Deathwing twisted in the air, not as nimbly as a Hurricane but still impressively enough, and Loki retreated toward an area of devastation from which all troops had withdrawn. The Deathwing followed him, slashing at him with its sharp-toothed beak and grasping claws. 

Loki dodged, parried with magical blows as powerful as he could make them, hoping to tire the creature before he was himself exhausted. There was no reason to expect this unknown realm to help him, and all the magic he had was what he himself carried. 

It was, however, a curious thing: he had been careful with his magic for so long that he had quite forgotten what it felt like, to have his own powers flowing unchecked and unrestricted. He had been accustomed, here on Midgard, to ensure he saved something for tomorrow. Now, since there would be no tomorrow, he had completely let go. The magic he produced, while finite, was far more powerful than he remembered, than he had ever thought himself capable of producing unassisted. The Deathwing cried out in pain rather than anger as another attacking spell struck it, and the steady beat of its wings faltered for moment. Loki began to permit himself to hope. If he could but finish this before--

"Brother!" came a cry from below him, and if it would not have wasted so much energy Loki really would have cursed, because there indeed was Thor, looking up at them as he had looked up at the Destroyer, and of all the persons and creatures and assorted living beings Loki did not want to fall to the Deathwing-- of all the creatures he _owed--_

There was a flash and Thor was rising toward them, to his assistance, Mjolnir outstretched in his hand, and the Deathwing had just begun another of its undulating turns when Loki reached to the very bottom of whatever reservoir in which his magic was stored. 

Cast a repelling charm at Thor, was aware of the expression of shock on his brother's face as it struck him and sent him tumbling back toward the ground. 

And then-- because he was surrounded by a flare that represented the last violent exhalation of his powers, the explosion before the darkness, and really, what had he to lose?-- Loki tried a last, faint-hope effort of his own, and called Mjolnir to himself. 

There was only one way this could possibly work, and that was if the enchantment set upon the great hammer at the time of Thor's banishment had been removed. Once, Mjolnir had been a magical and powerful weapon, yes, so heavy that only the strongest could even lift it. Thor could, but so also could Volstagg-- even Loki himself had once brought it nearly to his own knees. Thor wielded it with his mighty strength alone, and it had obeyed him.

When Thor was banished by the Allfather, however, Odin had laid a spell upon Mjolnir, so that only one who was "worthy" to wield it would be able to do so, and thus command the powers of Thor. It had been, if you will, a weathercock, so Thor might know when his lesson was learned and his welcome back to Asgard assured. 

(Loki did not permit himself to think of his own misguided effort to lift the thing himself, that rainy night at the SHIELD installation, his attempt to see if his plans had yet borne fruit, if he was on the right track, if he was finally, _finally--_ )

But Thor was restored: his powers, his character, everything. There was no further requirement for the enchantment, except as a reminder Thor would never need, and so, perhaps, the Allfather had taken it away…

Loki cast out everything that remained of his magic, and then felt a fierce sense of exultant relief, of gratitude to the Allfather for trusting Thor, and to Thor for being worthy of trust. For the enchantment had indeed been lifted: Mjolnir changed its course in the air and was rising toward his right hand. 

Loki's fingers closed around the leather-wrapped handle of the great hammer and without hesitation, without wasting time he did not have or effort he could not spare, he brought the weapon down on the side of the Deathwing's skull. There was a gruesome crunching noise. 

The sound the creature made tore at him, pain and fear and desolation, and if it had been within his power to do something else, to lift the enchantment and send the animal safely back where it came from, Loki would gladly have done it. 

But he had no choice, so he swung the hammer again and struck the Deathwing once more, and then a third time, and it all the while crying out and lashing at him, trying to defend itself, growing visibly weaker, the two of them tangled in a skein of magic that protected all others from the havoc they were wreaking, and finally the great wings folded and they plummeted together to the street below. 

Loki found himself on his knees next to the head of the crumpled Deathwing, gazing into its one remaining eye as the fierce yellow glow faded to a puzzled green, and then dwindled away entirely, along with the last remnants of his magic.

"I'm sorry," he told the creature, and had no idea why he was weeping. 

And then its pupil dilated, its stare became fixed, and in spite of his exhaustion Loki nearly wailed aloud in agony as he felt the curse strike him. 

Loki had, of course, experienced pain before this. Significant pain, even. He had once been beaten nearly to death, many years ago, had been savaged by vampires and staked through the lung within fairly recent memory, had his lips sewn roughly together by a mad and spiteful sorcerer. 

This was something far worse, almost beyond comprehension, certainly beyond bearing. Had he not been so utterly exhausted, completely wrung out beyond even the push of adrenaline, he would surely have staggered to his feet and run his nine steps in an effort to simply get away from the pain, like a frightened, dying animal.

Instead, the dying animal within him looked for… he knew not what. Comfort. Loki rose to his feet, stumbled backwards a step _(one)_ and then steadied himself. He looked around, muddled but still with wit enough for purpose, and felt something flow from his nose. He reached up, wiped at it with his hand, then looked incuriously at the blood. His eyes were also wet, and salty liquid seemed to fill his mouth, and a little investigation confirmed these, too, were blood. 

He turned around _(two, three)_ , reached clumsily up to wrench the helmet from his head, felt relief even through his pain as the breeze cooled his drenched hair. He dropped the helmet unheeded next to the abandoned Mjolnir, looked dazedly around, and found what he sought. 

With darkening sight, he could still recognize… bright hair, red at his shoulders, _comfort, safety_ \-- 

Thor. His brother, with a curious look on his face, wide-eyed and blank. Loki could not understand his expression, but he knew… he knew… something. 

He started toward the tall figure. 

_Four._

_Five._

~oOo~

The first cries of the Deathwing had of course brought all the Avengers at top speed. Thor had arrived to find his comrades gathered uselessly with the ground troops, as if the monster was not threatening them all. It was incomprehensible, especially when he saw the tiny horned figure battling the monster all alone and realized they had _left_ his _brother_ to combat the creature _by himself_. 

Tony Stark was shouting something at him, and Nick Fury as well, but Thor had no time to listen to arguments, not when Loki so obviously needed him. With a shout of encouragement, Thor called on Mjolnir and rose to join the battle. 

And a stunned moment later found himself crashing back to earth, lungs empty and chest bruised by the blow from his brother's magic. The blast was so powerful it was a moment even before Thor could try to rise, and then Tony Stark was clinging to one arm and Nick Fury holding the other, and both of them were speaking. 

"There's nothing you can do," Tony was shouting, and Fury was saying something about the Wraiths and a story, whatever that might mean, but Thor was paying no attention because Loki was _winning_ , he was defeating the monster, it crumpled up and they fell together to the street with a mighty crash, and Loki was--

Hurt. It was evident as he rose, turned, that he was badly injured, though Thor had not seen the blow fall. There was blood all over his face, when he removed the helmet it was visible streaming from his ears, and he clearly had hardly the strength to stand. 

"What happened?" he heard himself ask, stupidly, and Fury said something, again, about a story. 

"It's a myth," Tony explained, "they used a myth against him. The creature represents Jormungandr, the World Serpent. Loki killed it, and according to the story… he will then take nine steps, and… die."

"Die," Thor repeated. "There is a prophecy that my brother dies this way?"

Tony and Fury both looked stricken. 

"No," said Fury. 

"No," agreed Tony. "Thor… the story is about you."

~oOo~

Loki had lost track of how many steps _(six, seven)_ he had taken, how many he had left, but when Thor came rushing toward him he resisted the urge to stumble toward him, let Thor come to him instead although his strength was fading rapidly. Thor reached him just as he wobbled _(eight)_ , caught him in strong arms. Loki found himself sagging gratefully against the broad, armoured chest. 

"Brother, why would you do such a thing?" Thor's voice demanded, from very far away. It was aggravating, really, that he should say such a thing: if it had to be done, why _not_ Loki?

But there was, of course, a _why_. Thor's voice went on, "Tony and Nick Fury tell me, this task was set for me. Why did you-- ?"

It was difficult to make his mouth work, his lips felt numb, and the blood kept filling his mouth, but Loki turned his head where it rested against his brother's shoulder and managed to whisper into his ear: 

"Killed you. So… die for. Paid." 

"Loki," Thor's voice was another pained whisper, "I have _forgiven_ you for that."

Loki's shoulders twitched, an effort at a shrug. "I… have not." He felt a big hand come up to cradle his head and he managed a final exhalation: "… love you."

"And I you," Thor's voice said in the gathering darkness. Loki felt himself smile, and then his feet took one final, shuffling, step. 

_Nine._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It occurs to me that FracturedIron's wonderful drawing should be linked here:
> 
>  
> 
> [ **Loki's Sacrifice** ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/909650)


	34. Chapter 34

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _**Notes:** This chapter is fairly short, but was too long to have tacked onto the previous one._
> 
> _**Warnings:** Oh, the angst. Seriously. _

Loki had no idea how it had happened, but he suddenly found himself standing in the middle of a street, on the edge of what seemed to be quite a crowd. He looked around in confusion. 

And then, to his relief, Annie was there. Her face was dreadfully serious, but she came to him, held his arm. A moment later, George and Mitchell were with them as well, and they looked just as solemn as Annie. 

Loki was comforted by their presence, but alarmed by their expressions. He was about to ask them what was wrong-- but then the crowd parted a little, and Loki found himself sidling between distressed-looking Avengers who did not even notice him. 

And then he was looking down at his brother, who was kneeling in the street. 

"Thor?" Loki said softly. He felt concerned, but was somehow unable to conjure any very strong emotion.

Thor did not seem to hear him. There was a strange dazed expression on his face, and Loki now realized he held in his arms a limp, crumpled figure. Its head-- its bloody, terrible _face,_ pale eyes blankly staring-- was cradled with protective tenderness against Thor's broad shoulder. The figure was garbed in a ridiculous, theatrical costume of leather and bronze, had black hair, was tall and skinny and insignificant-looking...

"Oh," Loki said, softly. "That's... that's me, isn't it?"

Annie took his left hand, held it tightly. "It is."

"Oh," Loki repeated, and his right hand came up to lie against his chest, where he could feel... nothing. No magic, no life. 

No pain. 

A sense of relief began to fill him, as he realized the pain in his heart was really gone. He had carried it for so long, Loki could not even remember when it had started. If he concentrated hard, he could remember being very small, being held, leaning sleepily against Hildr, and he thought there had been no pain then, not in those moments. 

It was only later, when he was old enough that he should have known not to cling, when he should have been a big boy, should have known to behave like a prince instead of a baby-- he had been pushed away, gently, but still pushed, and still away, his hands disentangled, made to stand properly at the appropriate distance from whoever it was he needed to hold him-- that the pain had become a constant companion. 

It had been better when he was with Thor, with his pats and hugs and cries of, "Come on, brother!" as he tumbled through the palace on one adventure after another, Loki at his heels. He had known even then the smiles that greeted Thor were different, were warmer, but that was all right, that was only natural: of course everyone loved Thor more-- Loki did, too. The feeling of loneliness, of missing something, of _needing_ something, had been there, but it was not everything, not then. 

And then even Thor had pushed him away, had replaced him, did not want him anymore, and after a while where his heart should have been there was only a hard, hot, pulsing ball of anger, jealousy, need, _want_. He tried to fight it, argue with it, tell it that it was wrong, that he was wrong, that there was something wrong with him to feel like this. He had tried to calm it, to soothe it with lies, with fantasies in which he too was beloved. Eventually he had simply tried to bear it, live with it, had even thought he was succeeding--

Until Thor was to be crowned. 

Ever since his fall, Loki had been trying not only to make amends for his crimes, but also to sort through the _why_ \-- the combination of events and emotions that had led him to commit them in the first place. It had not been easy: he could hardly even remember what he had done anymore, let alone his motivations.

After his captivity, Loki had been so raw and weak that it had been easier than before to burrow through the guards remaining around his mind and his heart. Many of them had fallen since his time in Bristol, but some had been in place for so long they were hardly even noticed as barriers anymore.

He sensed now that he had come to the end, to bedrock, was now about to face the thing that, after nine hundred years of endurance, had finally been too much to be borne: 

Thor was to be crowned.

If Thor became king, they would no longer hold the same rank-- Thor of course far more important, but _technically_ at the same level, _technically_ equal. Thor would be king, and Loki would no longer be able to push his way where he was not wanted, would no longer be able to cling to him. Thor would tell him to go, and he would have to obey. There would be no more chances, nothing further he could do: Thor-- who had once loved him, who except for the lost Hildr was the only being who ever _had_ loved him-- Thor would be irrevocably lost to him, would never love him again. 

The realization had struck him as a terrible blow, and the pain in his heart became like an infection, hot and swelling and furiously angry. 

He had played his ugly trick on the coronation day without even considering it was dangerous, was frank treason. He had been too frantic to think of that, had just wanted to _stop this,_ to show Father that Thor was not ready-- to keep everything as it was for a little while longer, hold off his own complete rejection, however briefly.

He had nearly repented, though it was too late anyway, had almost regretted what he had put in motion, had at the eleventh hour tried to tell himself he had been wrong, Thor's coronation would not become his own final, irreparable casting-out-- 

And then they were in the throne room, Thor triumphant and proud, and looking at everyone, _everyone,_ except his brother. Thor had not wanted even Loki's congratulations, had not cared even to lord his new position over one so utterly beneath his notice. 

Any last doubts fled then: when Thor became king, he would appoint his advisors from among his own friends, would relegate Loki to worse than an afterthought. He would be someone who must be given a place at the king's table-- or anyway a nearby table-- out of obligation, but he would be of no importance, would not matter, would be _nothing_ in the eyes of _anyone._

Loki knew it was _true_ , it had always been _true_ , even a confirmed liar could recognize the truth when his face was rubbed in it, but he could not stand to have it _known_ by the entire court-- or, rather, displayed to a court that already knew it perfectly well, had known it for all of their lives. He had too much pride to be able to stand that. And, since pride was now all that Loki had left, he would do anything at all to protect it.

It was too late then to stop the Jotun invaders anyway, even if he had wanted to. As he stood beside his mother, utterly alone-- even she was scarcely aware of his presence, did not care whether he stayed or went-- he had watched his brother acknowledge everyone he loved-- not Loki, of course not, not anymore and never again-- and he no longer regretted what he had done. He told himself he did not. 

Later, in the banquet hall, when he made things worse... he had not wanted it to go as far as it did. He had won, but he could not let it alone: now he wanted Father to be really angry at Thor, to... to not love him either, at least for a little while. Loki knew that Father would eventually forgive Thor, of course he would, but if Father was, for a while, angry and cold and dismissive... if Thor lost favour with him... perhaps...

Perhaps his friends would not want him anymore, either, and then... then, maybe, Loki could have him back. He thought-- no, it was not at the level of thought, nor even hope, he simply _wished_ \-- that if he and Thor could only be allies, _brothers_ , again, just the two of them, just for a little while... maybe...

It was the only chance that he had, and so it was the only thing he could do.

He had not intended everything that happened next: the attack on the Jotun, Thor's banishment-- he had meant to hold onto Thor, not cast him away and lose him after all-- the discovery about himself that turned his hot raging heart briefly, ironically, ice-cold in his chest.

But then _he_ was king, _he_ was given a chance, a way to finally, _finally_ earn what Thor had always been freely given. 

Thor. Who must have _known_ , Father must have _told him_ , Father would not lie to _Thor_ , and that was _why_ , it had to be _why_ … 

And then Loki was on Midgard, looking into Thor's heartbroken eyes and lying to his face, hardly caring the Allfather would wake and his lies would be found out, because the only thing in his mind as he lied was: _Now you will know how it feels…_

And it did not matter what he did anyway, because Thor's friends did not abandon him, so Thor would choose them. Of course he would: no one would choose Loki who had any other options. It did not matter now. He had lost. 

But still: he was king, and he could make a place for himself that way. It was not what he wanted, but it was all he could have, if he could only win it for himself, and he had _tried_ \-- tried until the burning ache in his chest was nearly worse than the madness in his head-- tried until he was so tired and bewildered and angry that all he could feel for Thor, for anyone, was hatred-- 

Tried and failed, _again_. 

The only escape was death, but Thor would not kill him, and so he had let himself fall. 

He had expected to die in the void, had hoped to, but he had not: he had fallen and fallen and finally landed, heart empty and aching and still _wanting_ , wanting what he knew he did not deserve-- only now it was offered to him ("Are you all right? Are you hurt? You had better come inside." "You don't look like a monster." "There's a box room we can clear out for you, if you want to stay.") 

He did not understand it, knew he was not worthy of it, but he had not the strength to refuse, was unable to deny himself what he had needed for so long, now that it was held out to him in open hands. The kindness, the affection his new friends showed him had seeped into his heart, washing away centuries' worth of painful detritus, uncovering softness, warmth… things walled away and buried for so long he had nearly forgotten he possessed them. 

But they had also welcomed in remorse, and regret, and understanding of what he had done, of what terrible crimes he had committed. 

And at the same time, too, it turned out that even having creatures he could truly love, beings who permitted him to love them, who loved him in return and did not disappear-- even that did not quite make up for the others, for Thor and his parents and everyone, for the _centuries_ of fruitless wasted hopeless one-sided affection. Still, it was more than he had ever had before, at any time in his life, and he was grateful.

And then Thor came and found him, Thor forgave him, loved him after all and in spite of everything. He would not have believed it, except Thor never lied, and the revelation brought relief, a comfort he had not felt in more years than he could remember. There was still a part of his heart that ached, that always would, but he knew there was nothing he could do about it, just as there was nothing he could do about the regret, except to live with it.

And then he found himself back in Asgard, was summoned by the Allfather for what he knew would be his final, public, disgrace and punishment. He had been no less astonished than the court, when it turned out that what his father had in mind was more in the nature of public banishment of secrets, mutual apology, and an unequivocal assurance of love-- still largely intangible to Loki, perhaps, but there regardless and finally, timidly, to be believed in. 

That had been the first occasion he could ever remember when his heart had not hurt, not anywhere. 

It had not lasted, of course: the remorse came back, and without the bitterness and loneliness to turn it into self-pity, it had been able to grow until it occupied equal space with the love that was now safe to feel. It drove him to try to make amends, find a way to make reparation, although he knew he could not, knew he would carry this with him for as long as he lived, would have to pay for as long as he lived. 

And now he looked down at his brother, kneeling on the ground, cradling a bloodied corpse he knew was his own, and he realized with relief that he no longer lived: he had finally paid all he could, and he was free. 

"What happens now?" he asked Annie, humbly. 

"I don't know," Annie admitted. "For humans, it's usually a door. You pass through it and move on."

"I am not human," Loki reminded her. "Or Aesir, or Jotun either, really. I am not... anything. I do not know what I am, or what might be waiting for me." 

"Valkyries?" Annie offered, not very hopefully.

"No. Valhalla is for warriors." He looked down at Annie, his expression curious. "Was there not a door for you?" He knew this already, she had told him before, but somehow he wanted to ask her again. 

"No," Annie replied. "I don't know why. Usually that means you still have a purpose, here on Earth." She smiled at him, her eyes soft. "I've sometimes wondered if it was you." 

Loki's hand tightened on hers. "I... would like to think that." He looked around at Mitchell and George, then back at Thor, who still appeared stricken and perhaps about to weep. He was not distressed for himself-- he had known what he was doing, had chosen it freely-- but Loki felt a twist in his heart at Thor's grief. 

He called softly, "Brother? It is all right, brother, I am here." Thor gave no sign of recognition, and though he was still not afraid or unhappy, Loki felt tears welling in his eyes. "Why can he not see me? Thor?"

"Maybe it's because you're getting ready to cross over," Annie said. "It might... maybe it would upset him too much. I don't think he can see any of us right now."

"Perhaps I have said all I need to, to him," Loki guessed. He looked around at his friends. "But to you-- " George held up a hand to stop him and Loki, tears now flowing freely, shook his head. "Please, listen to me. When I fell, my father cast a spell after me. You remember what he said? That the first beings I met would be able to help me, if I was able to let them? 

"If it had not been you, who also felt yourselves to be outcasts, but did not let it destroy you, who have always been so kind and understanding, and made me think there could be more to me than my faults and my crimes… 

"You were the first creatures since I was very young who made me feel as if I was wanted, as if I was loved. Who took me in and let me stay, for no better reason than that you wanted me. You made me able to believe that others might want me, too. Might love me. 

"Because of you, I was able to believe my father and mother, when they told me that they did. If the first beings I met had been anyone but you, had tried to help me in some other way, I do not know if I could have let them. I needed you, and I love you, and I do not have words enough to thank you for all you have done for me."

"None needed," George replied gently, reaching out an affectionate hand. 

"And not all on your side," Mitchell added. Loki blinked at him, and Mitchell, his voice trembling, went on, "It's always been hard for me, being on the wagon. Not hurting people. I'm a vampire. That's what we do. Being friends with George helped, just watching him make such a point of not hurting anyone, being so careful. 

"And then you came to us, and you tried so hard to make up for what you did wrong before-- sometimes I'd feel like, I'd been such a monster in the past, there was no point in even trying to be better, but you never thought like that, ever. You never gave up. And I'd look at you, and I'd try again." Mitchell's eyes were filling, too, as he said, "Thank you."

He stepped forward, arms outstretched, and George did too, but when they hugged him, instead of two solid bodies, one warm and the other cool, Loki could only feel a sort of buzzing charge, like an electric razor held against his skin. His eyes widened momentarily, and then he realized, of course, he was now a ghost, at least for the moment, and this was what it felt like for Annie, when George or Mitchell tried to embrace her. The boys stepped back, looking startled themselves, and in spite of knowing and accepting that this was the way it had to be, Loki felt a terrible sense of loss.

And then Annie moved forward and wrapped her arms around him. Perhaps owing to his magic, or perhaps for some other reason, Loki had for quite some time been able to feel Annie as a physical presence: cold, and with a different sort of energy from a living person, but real. 

Now he too was a ghost, and as her arms tightened, he had a sense of someone warm and vital and alive, and he tangled his fingers in her hair and held onto her, saying confusedly, 

"I love you, Annie. Until I met you I did not think it was even possible, for me to love anyone the way I love you, or for anyone to... I mean… "

"I know what you mean," Annie replied gently. "I love you, too." 

"I know it is selfish of me, to be so glad that you-- " Loki began. Annie reached up and placed two fingers on his lips. 

"Shh," she said quietly, with a little smile. "Don't say that." Loki leaned down to her and she kissed him, and then leaned into him, arms tight around him. After a moment she stepped back, but held his hand, and Loki understood that she intended to go on holding his hand until it was time for him to leave them. 

He would have thanked her, but he was distracted when Thor, still cradling his dead brother, smoothing his hair, looked up. Loki turned his head and saw their father approaching, on foot, Sleipnir following along without being led, confused and clinging to his master. 

Odin's face was dull and slack with shock as he approached Thor, the Avengers parting to let him through. Thor looked up with entreaty in his eyes. "Father, I am sorry. I couldn't-- " 

Odin did not seem to hear him. Moving like a very old man, he knelt beside Thor and, slowly, reached out to lay a hand on the head of the corpse, stroke its matted black hair. "No, Loki," he said, very softly. And then, "No, no, no..." 

It was a long moment before he seemed to remember Thor was there. He briefly laid a hand against the back of his head, but as they looked down at the dead thing in Thor's arms, neither father nor son seemed really aware of the other anymore, or able to take comfort in each other's presence.

Tony edged forward, his face pale against the gleaming red-and-golden of his armoured suit. He opened and closed his mouth a time or two and then said meekly, 

"We're terribly sorry."

Thor did not even look up. Odin did, looked incuriously at the Iron Man, his expression grim. 

"You were promised the assistance of Asgard," he said, in a tone of finality. "We keep to our word-- whatever the cost." Not so very long ago, Loki would have been terribly hurt by the indifference in the words. A little wiser now, he ignored the words and just listened to what his father _said_. 

"Really, Father, it is all right," he protested helplessly. "There is no need to be upset. Really." 

Annie squeezed his hand. "Of course there is," she told him quietly. 

Loki started forward, his own hand outstretched, still unable to believe his father and brother could not see or hear him, when Tony came alert. From another part of the battlefield came Helblindi, and Byleistr walking beside him. Loki was conscious of both Annie's hands closing around his, of George and Mitchell drawing closer to him. 

Thor tightened his arms around the corpse as though he could still protect it, and Odin rose slowly to his feet, to stand between his son-- his _sons_ \-- and the two Jotun. Byleistr came to a halt, looking down at them. Thor made a hasty, childlike swipe at his streaming eyes, and glared up at the king. 

"If you have come to see your revenge done-- " he began defiantly, and Byleistr raised a hand. 

"Peace, son of Odin," he said quietly. "Your brother's account with us is settled." He turned his calm regard on the Allfather. "We have no further quarrel with your son."

"His life was a sufficient price for you?" Thor demanded, too distressed to care that he showed insolence to an ally and a king. Odin should have rebuked him, even under such circumstances, but Odin said nothing.

"His life is of no matter to me," Byleistr shrugged. He glanced again at the dead body, and then looked at his legion of living soldiers, and at Helblindi, before he added, "Theirs, however... Theirs may be said to cancel his debt." He studied Thor and his father for a moment, as though he considered offering condolences. 

Instead, however, he turned to Helblindi. 

"The debt owed to Jotunheim by the second prince of Asgard is paid. You may, perhaps, feel you have an account of your own to be settled with him?"

Helblindi stepped forward, and Thor scrambled backward as well as he could, dragging the body with him. Odin looked up at the old Jotun, saw something, perhaps, in his face, and drew aside. Helblindi extended a hand, as though in comfort, and spoke directly to Thor. 

"This is a debt I have long owed-- to your brother, yes, but especially to his mother," the old Jotun said, and suddenly in his hands was the Casket of Ancient Winters. 

Loki's eyes widened in realization. 

"No," he said softly. Then, more loudly, "No. Helblindi, no. Please don't-- "

There were words spoken, and then a flash. Loki's hand was torn from Annie's grasp, and he fell into blackness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _**Notes:** Readers of the entire series may have noticed that Loki's internal explanations for his actions have varied a little as the story developed. Yes, it's partly me as the writer, figuring out the character, but it's also that his motivations were always complicated and confusing even to him-- it struck me that he'd been hiding his emotions for so long that even he couldn't find them anymore._
> 
> _I've never been satisfied with his explanations so far regarding what set him off in the first place. At least, I've always been pretty sure that whatever it was, it wasn't concern for Asgard. In this story, the deleted scene before the coronation does not exist, and in the theatrical release you probably remember a great many reaction shots from Loki, and no indication that anyone else was even aware of his presence. It was painful to watch, let alone live through._
> 
> _Also-- Loki's lies to Thor in the SHIELD facility always seemed pointless, if he didn't really plan to kill Odin. The explanation in this chapter tries to deal with that._
> 
> _And-- of course you knew he wasn't really dead!_


	35. Chapter 35

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Notes:** I know, yet another update! This one's written so I might as well post it.
> 
> Some readers have expressed a fondness for long chapters. I hope they meant it, and I apologize to everyone else. There are still some things that needed to be said. It seemed to make sense to let them all be said in a single chapter, instead of breaking this one up into two. 
> 
> There's probably one more chapter (not yet written!) to go, and I'd really like to thank everyone who's stuck with this story for so long for your support, encouragement, lovely comments and for just being there. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it!
> 
>  **Warnings:** For angst finally going nuclear, and for an ITC (Infamous Talking Chapter.) Should be the last one of those!

The cleanup and rebuilding was going to take months, and Tony dedicated all the resources Stark Industries could muster to the effort. It wasn't like he was going to have a hell of a lot else to do for a while: Fury, Hill and Coulson would be fully occupied with internal SHIELD investigations for quite some time, and the Avengers were stood down indefinitely once the battle was over. 

That had actually ended shortly after Loki killed the Deathwing. Whether it was the combined weight of the forces arrayed against them, or the disappearance and rumoured death of the Red Skull, the remaining Hydra troops surrendered almost immediately. As for the Wraiths, well, the survivors clearly had a better exit strategy than their erstwhile allies: Clea Strange and Charles Xavier had tried to hunt down the remainder of the creatures and they were nowhere to be found. NASA reported some activity heading in the direction of the Dark Nebula immediately after the battle. Tony sincerely hoped the Wraiths had decided there really was no place like home. 

Speaking of that-- Loki's friends probably thought the same thing, but they still accepted Tony's invitation to stay in Stark Tower with the rest of the Avengers, waiting for Thor to come back from Asgard and tell them what was going on with Loki. Tony didn't understand why they hadn't just gone with him in the first place, but Mitchell had awkwardly explained that they thought, well… family time. 

Tony had started to point out that, as far as he could tell, Loki considered them members of his family, and then he realized it wasn't Loki that Mitchell was thinking of. Fair enough. 

Thor hadn't seemed to be thinking of much of anything when the Bifrost picked them up. Tony didn't blame him: he was having some trouble getting the image out of his own mind, of Loki lying on the street bone-grey and defenseless and much smaller than usual. Thor still hadn't wanted to let go of him, but Thor had looked much smaller than usual, too, and when Helblindi insisted he'd obeyed. 

When Helblindi conjured the Casket, Steve had made a protesting noise, but whatever he feared apparently hadn't happened. There had been a bright glow, and Helblindi spoke in a language the others didn’t understand, and suddenly there was magic all around them, so much of it that Tony could see Annie, perfectly clearly, looking down at Loki with her hands clasped and an expression of hope on her face. 

They all watched with hope, as the light washed the grey out of Loki's complexion and his colour came back, still pale but not much paler than usual. Then the blue undertones of his skin had intensified, and he'd started to turn grey again, but this time a sort of living grey. And then his skin turned blue, and on his face were… sort of raised tribal markings, like Helblindi's. Tony found himself looking at the other Jotun who'd gathered around the Casket, because maybe the markings were family characteristics and right this minute some Jotun was realizing they were related--

And then Tony had forgotten all about that, because Loki made a sound, the same little hitching gasp he'd let out that day at the lodge in Scotland when he'd been reunited with his friends…

And then he _inhaled_ , a big deep breath like Pepper when she was using her yoga practice to keep herself from braining Tony with a laptop. 

Exhaled. 

And kept on breathing. 

He didn't wake up, but he kept on breathing, and he was still breathing when the Casket vanished back to wherever Helblindi had called it from, and the old Jotun had picked Loki up. He'd looked about five years old, a little kid in a tattered costume, being carried up to bed. 

"It is perhaps safest for you if I carry him," Helblindi had said simply to Loki's father and brother. Odin who had gotten a grip on himself, nodded. Thor, on the other hand, had to be reminded to call Mjolnir to him, and he'd looked like a bewildered kid himself when the Bifrost picked them all up. 

That was two days ago, and Tony kept reassuring himself, he and Loki's friends and the rest of the gang were all reassuring each other that it would be okay, two days wasn't that long, everything would be all right…

To be honest, Tony was starting not to believe himself by the time the sky went black and boiling, and there was that whirlwind of light that said someone from Asgard was coming back. They had all run upstairs to the landing site on the roof of the Tower, so everyone-- Loki's friends, the Avengers, a few random staff members who'd seen the battle on TV-- was there when Thor materialized. 

He was smiling. 

~oOo~

Loki woke up in pain, and cold, and afraid. Instinctively trying to conceal his return to consciousness-- although he was not sure from what-- he lay still and listened, trying to determine whether anyone else was in the room. Silence greeted him. As far as he could tell, he was alone.

The ache in his heart had returned. 

After a moment, he cautiously slitted his eyes open and looked around, still without moving his head or giving away his state of consciousness. He could see rich wall-hangings, shining dark furniture, a wooden wardrobe in one corner. Loki's chest constricted as he realized he was in his old bedchamber in Asgard, and his mind whirled as he tried frantically to decipher what that might mean. 

Had he dreamed everything? Perhaps Thor's coronation had yet to happen, and Loki had not committed any crimes or acts of treason. Perhaps he had not yet gone mad and tried to destroy the realm on which he had been born. Perhaps it was not too late after all. Perhaps--

\-- Perhaps he was still only the second prince of Asgard, ignored and unwanted and friendless, not yet driven mad by loneliness and grief, but well on his way. 

Loki let his eyes close again as he tried to think. The dream, if such it had been, was still so vivid, it had to be meant to show him something. He must... 

Thor-- he would talk to Thor. To his parents. That was it, it was as the humans always advised, at least the humans who had lived in his dreams: _"Just talk to them."_ He would... he would make them see what was in his heart, eating away at him. They would help him, and he would not harm anyone after all. He would...

He would, but would they? 

_"Just talk to them."_ Such simple advice, so easy to give, but what if _everything_ had been a dream, and if he tried to speak to them, to repair things, to save himself and everyone else-- what if he only received that old look of apathy and contempt from Thor, and was told to know his place? What if he got only the wordless growl from Father, and the politely indifferent social smile from Mother?

What made him think things could be different, could change, that Loki could make them _see him_ simply by asking them to please look?

Suppose it had _all_ been a dream, including the part in which he was genuinely loved after all? What then?

He could not… if this truly had been a dream, a warning, he could not ignore it. Not even if the cataclysm that had shaken his entire family was all that could make them really see each other. He would avert it, he had to try, and if he failed... 

If he failed, he would leave. 

Of course. That was what must be done, if Thor was still to be crowned, if it was not too late… He would try to change things, but if he could not, he would leave. He had to, because if this was a warning, telling him he really would go mad, then he must do something, _anything,_ to avoid it. 

He would go elsewhere, find somewhere he would not be rejected every hour, somewhere he could heal, and he would not become a villain after all. And someday, perhaps, his brother really would miss him, would come looking for him, and then perhaps they could... 

That was it. That was what he would do. He would go to Midgard, where he would be accepted and could start over, and-- 

And that thought stopped him in his tracks, because if he had dreamed it all, then he had also dreamed Midgard and his place there, his home… Perhaps Annie, George and Mitchell did not even exist. And even if they did, they would have no reason to want him or to take him in. 

_It was not a dream. Please._ And yet, and yet the thought was contemptible, because it was not only himself. Surely he could not be so selfish as to wish the disaster to Jotunheim real, just so that he could keep his loved ones? 

_He was_. He was indeed so selfish, and he knew it, had to fight it, punish himself, make it not be so--

He had quite forgotten that it was not under his control, whether his memories of being accepted and loved were dreams or reality.

He had quite forgotten about being still, in case he was not alone. If he had only been dreaming, then of course he was alone, he was always alone in these cold and hateful chambers. His breathing had become shallow and harsh as his anxiety mounted, and when a hand touched his shoulder, his eyes flew open and he nearly screamed, pain attacking him from every direction as his body jerked in alarm.

"Loki, wake up. Wake up. You are safe," a voice said soothingly, reassuringly. He did not recognize it right away, because it was not a voice he associated with such reassurances, not at least outside of dreams, and surely he hurt too much to be dreaming now. 

Loki blinked rapidly, and his mother's face came into focus, looking down at him in concern. So: not dreams after all, and he felt guilty relief at realizing it was so. He was indeed so selfish, but since he could not control it, perhaps he could be forgiven his relief that his friends were real after all? Because in the time before his treason and madness and fall, there would have been no reason for his mother to be in his chambers watching him sleep, no reason for her to be here at all. It must have been real, all of it, right up to the moment when Helblindi--

"Are you all right?" she asked, as if she really wanted to know, and he was not, of course he wasn't, but instinct and long habit prompted the lie:

"Yes, I am fine." He gave a watery smile. "I had... a bad dream."

His mother stroked his head, like Hildr used to do when he was very small indeed, and smiled down at him. It was not the cool smile that had always pushed him off at arm's distance, reminded him that he was flawed and failed and worthless, but a shaken, trembling one that sought to reassure, despite being afraid herself. It looked so... _real,_ that Loki was indeed reassured by it. 

At least until she spoke:

"It did sound dreadful," she said quietly. "We could not wake you, and you kept begging Helblindi to stop, as though he was doing something terrible to you." She paused, as if waiting for Loki to speak. When he did not-- he had been quite unaware he really had dreamed after all-- she went on, "It seemed very strange for you to dream of him so, when as far as I know the only thing he has ever done to you is save your life." 

Loki could not explain, and so he remained silent. His mother petted him once again, then took his hands. 

"You have been unconscious, or perhaps asleep, for more than a day. You were in your Jotun form when your father brought you home-- the effect of the Casket, according to Helblindi-- but both Eir and Helblindi said you needed only sleep, and so we thought you would be better in your own chamber than the healing rooms. It was easier to keep this room cool, while you were in that form, and we thought you would find it comforting to wake in your own bed." His mother began to look anxious, as though it was beginning to occur to her that if he looked anything, comforted was not it. 

And the humans he knew, who were apparently real after all, would adjure him to be honest, _honesty is the best policy,_ but Loki could not see how it would help, now, to tell his mother what waking nightmares of cold and loneliness filled his memories of these rooms. That waking in the healing rooms under the protective eye of old Eir would have been far more reassuring than finding himself here. 

But he was not alone. There was the difference. He was cold, yes, but his mother had explained that: he was cold because the room really was cold, in an effort to protect him from harm in his Jotun form--

Loki glanced at the hand his mother held, saw it pale and smooth-skinned and Aesir. Frigga's grip tightened. 

"You began to change back a short time ago, when you stopped crying out to Helblindi. Your brother was with you. He put you under the covers and called me." She was looking at him closely enough to recognize the twitch of awareness, and added urgently, "I was here with you, too, when you were in your other form. We did not leave you alone. We took turns, your brother and your father and I-- though it was difficult to persuade your brother to leave you long enough for him to eat or rest. Thor was very sorry he did not think to bring your friends with you, but it all happened in such confusion..." 

There was something she was not telling him. For most of his life, Loki had not looked for falsehoods from his mother, had assumed she and his father were truthful in all things, not like him. Now he could not help looking for lies from her, and he was sure he saw something there. 

Frigga saw his expression, must have recognized... not distrust, exactly, but a question. Without forcing him to ask, she confessed, 

"We did not want to leave you, but after you had changed safely back, I had to make your brother... He was so weary-- "

"I am rather surprised you did not need to render him unconscious to make him leave me," Loki remarked. "He does fuss so." His mother's anxious look made it clear she feared what was under his jest, and Loki tried to produce a conciliatory smile. "I understand. You had to go." Of course she did. Truly. And how much did it matter, if he was left alone for half an hour when he was unconscious anyway? Not much, he insisted to himself, trying to be reasonable.

"And your father was with Tyr and the Jotun leaders, so... " Frigga looked terribly guilty. Loki began to wonder exactly how long he had been abandoned. His mother went on rapidly, "One of the maids offered to stay with you, and-- It was only for a short time, she had looked after you in the envoys' hall, and she said she would be glad-- "

Oh. _Oh._ That was different. "Was it Gunna?" Loki asked, hopeful and rather touched. 

"Yes, that was her name. She seemed truly concerned for you."

"She is a nice girl," Loki agreed. "It was kind of her, to be interested."

"I thought so, too," Frigga replied. 

Loki looked weakly around, and something occurred to him: "But.. I should not be-- The terms of my banishment-- ?"

Frigga squeezed his hand. "Loki, surely you do not think yourself still banished? Byleistr has forgiven you. It is over."

She petted his hand again, as if holding it was not enough, and Loki belatedly noticed something. Frigga's hands were always soft and fine, but now he felt roughness against his skin. He clasped her hands and turned the right one slightly. 

There were marks on her fingers and palm, the marks of a partly-healed, recent, burn. It must have been serious, if Eir could not heal it completely. Loki looked at the marks in confusion for a moment. And then his mother pulled gently away from his grasp and laid her hand on his cheek, the burn marks lying close against his skin, following the angles of his bones. 

"We were not sure whether your sleep was like your father's," she explained quietly. "Whether you might be aware of us near you, and... We did not like to think of you yearning toward us..."

 _Oh._ Loki's throat constricted as he understood, imagined his mother comforting her Jotun child. _Not a dream, then. Not any of it._

They remained silent for a few moments, and then his mother said, "Your brother says you intercepted a curse intended to kill him." 

"Oh, I think the curse did not really care who it killed," Loki replied, as lightly as he could manage, and was horrified beyond words when his feeble jest caused his mother's eyes to fill with tears. 

"Stop that," she ordered, her voice choked. At Loki's uncomprehending look, she repeated, "Stop it. You purposely sacrificed your own life to save your brother, to save those Aesir and Jotun soldiers, and their Casket. Do not pretend it was nothing. Your life is not _nothing._ "

"I… I am not…" Loki protested. "I merely… I needed to-- "

"Why?" Frigga pounced, and Loki flinched at the intensity of her words. "Thor has forgiven you. Your father and I have forgiven you. Why did you _need to?_ "

"Because…" Loki hesitated, tried to find an explanation his mother might accept, and then in his weakness blurted out the truth: "I needed to _deserve_ to be forgiven."

Frigga sat back in her chair, and she might as well have removed herself to a distance of forty leagues. Loki's throat closed and his eyes filled again, this time with tears of an entirely different kind of pain. He had no idea why his words had ruined everything, but they obviously had done so, had caused his mother to retreat once again to the terrible distance that had frightened him so badly as a child, when he felt he was always reaching toward his parents and never able to touch them, always left alone somewhere cold and comfortless.

And then she was leaning toward him once more, but now he was wary, afraid of saying the wrong thing, of causing her to push him away again. Her hand came up to his cheek and he was torn between equally powerful impulses to lean into and to flinch away from her touch.

"And here I am, doing it again," Frigga said, as if to herself, and in a tone of profound sorrow. Loki did not dare ask what she meant, but she seemed to expect that, stroked his cheek lightly with her fingertips, and said, "I have been frightening you away ever since you were a child. I never mean to do it, do not even know what I have done to cause it, but suddenly there is such a distance between us, and a terrible sadness in your eyes." She moved closer, took hold of his hand, and said firmly, "Do not speak of _deserving_ our forgiveness. We forgive you. It is done."

Loki nodded, too afraid to argue. His mother studied his expression, and sighed.

"Once again, I have said the wrong thing. What is it?" Loki shook his head, still fighting tears, too tired and sore to hide them. Frigga pitched her voice more softly. "Please tell me. I know now that you, my clever, silver-tongued child, have always believed no one ever listened to you. I will listen. I will not argue, or cut you off because I become uncomfortable, and I will not tell you what you should say, or what you should think or feel. The last time you were brought here hurt, I promised that we would speak, and I failed you. Please talk to me now."

"I don't know what to say," Loki protested, his voice a scratchy shameful whisper.

"Tell me about deserving to be forgiven," Frigga coaxed. Loki did not answer for a moment, could not, and in times before now his mother would have uttered some light pleasantry and allowed the moment to pass. 

This time, she did not. Instead, she held his hand and waited. He was conscious that this was unusual, was a gift, and if he delayed too long it might be taken away and never offered again. 

"I… I know you forgive me," he said finally. "And I know you love me. But if I have not _earned_ it…" He tried to think of a way to say what he meant. "If I have _earned_ it, it is really _mine._ " 

That was not what he wanted to say, not quite, but his mother was looking at him as though she believed she understood him. She also looked as if she was trying to suppress a sensation of horror at what she was hearing.

"And if it is really yours, we cannot change our minds and take it away again later, is that what you mean?" That was exactly what Loki meant, only when you said it out loud it sounded like a terrible accusation, instead of a skulking, sneaking fear. "Oh, Loki," Frigga sighed, her disappointment palpable and terrifying. But she took both his hands in both of hers and said gently, "What have we done to you?"

"Nothing," Loki blurted, still whispering. "You have done nothing, it is just... " As usual, in a matter of any importance to him, Loki's silver tongue turned, as the jibe went, to lead. He struggled on: "You have forgiven me, and I am grateful, truly. I… I am. But… but I do not… I have no way of knowing when I have _paid_ , when I can _stop_ … It never _ends._ "

"And the Norns forbid anything should be easy for you," Frigga said, and now there was an edge to her voice, a darkness that filled Loki with dread. He remembered that darkness, remembered how, when he lived here, it used to make him flee to his chambers, to bury himself in his books or his magic, so he could forget that look, that expression that had no love in it at all. 

He could not flee now, was forced to look at his mother, to see her expression, and so for the first time he saw how it twisted and turned inward, and he suddenly knew it was not meant for him, not to hurt him, at all-- not now, anyway, and perhaps never had been. 

"Of course not," Frigga crooned, but it was a croon filled with venom, like a mother serpent singing lullabies to her child. "We can never make anything easy for you, you always have to guess, and try again and again to make us love you, because it would be too simple, beneath our dignity, to take you in our arms, and hold you, and tell you that we already do." 

The venom was not meant for him, either. She was not looking at him anymore, or at least not looking at him as he was now, before her. Loki suddenly thought perhaps she was looking at a Loki from far in the past, speaking to him, wishing he was still there to hear her, so the things that had torn them apart, had nearly destroyed them, need never come to pass after all. 

Frigga's eyes came back to the present, and she looked at him now, at what had become of him, and said gently, 

"You think, perhaps, that you should not simply accept our forgiveness, because that would be too easy. You should know, my son, that forgiving you was the hardest thing I have ever done." Loki found himself trapped by his mother's eyes, unable to look away, as she went on, "It was hard for me, because, as much as I love you-- " 

_And here it was, here was the crisis, she was about to admit to it, say out loud the thing he had always known in his heart, and feared more than anything --_

"-- as much as I love you, that is how much I also love your brother." 

Loki blinked, because that was not what he had expected, because no matter how he turned and twisted and examined that statement, there was nothing in it that could possibly hurt him, nothing in it that was not fair or spoke of less love for him. 

Frigga held his hands more tightly, clinging to him now, as though she knew what she said next really was going to hurt him, as though she wanted to hold him so he would hear it all the way through. There was no purpose in her clinging to him like this: it would not hold him if he had magic, and as weak as he was now he could hardly push her away even if he wanted to. 

He did not want to. 

"When you left us, after you fell from the Bifrost, when I learned all that you had done… I was terribly angry at you," Frigga confessed. "I missed you, and I grieved for you, but I could not stop thinking of what you had done, and who you had done it to-- how you could harm your brother, who loves you so much, and care so little that you caused such pain to your parents and your friends."

Loki nodded wordlessly, although every one of her words struck him like a blow. He would never deserve… 

Frigga went on speaking. "But you were dead. I knew you were dead, and so after a while I did not allow myself to think of the anger. I remembered when you were little, when you and Thor were close, when you were brought by the nursemaids to see your father and me, and you were so beautiful. I remembered how you grew to be clever and talented, and... and loyal to your brother, through all his adventures, right up until... That was what I wanted to remember, not... everything after. You were dead, and I did not want to remember why and how.

"But your father... he was sure you lived. Long before Heimdall found you at last, your father would tell me that you were alive, that you would be well... 'He has another chance,' your father would say. He told me of his cleansing spell, of what he had done to ensure you would find help, of how certain he was that you would accept it, would choose a new path. 'This time,' he would say, 'this time'...

"And I knew it was only sentiment, that it could not be true. How could it be true, after we had tried so hard, and loved you so much, and you had repaid us as you had? 

"I missed you, and I grieved for you, but I wanted you to be dead. I wanted it to be over. I did not want to have to watch you continue on your path of evil, to know my child was capable of such things. I knew we had done our best for you, but still, there was something wrong with you-- whether because you were Jotun, or because you were the son of Laufey, why did not matter-- and so there was nothing we could have done to change all that happened.

"And then... then Heimdall found you. Your father would ask him to look for you, when I thought you dead, when your brother thought you dead, and one day Heimdall found you. Your father was... he was so happy, so full of hope, and I almost hated Heimdall, and you too, for allowing him to hope when I knew how it would be dashed, when I knew you would only break his heart again."

Frigga fell silent, staring blindly, and Loki had to restrain the instinct to speak up, to apologize for... for what? For all the terrible things he had done upon Midgard?

Frigga dashed at her eyes and went on: "I did not want to speak of you, I did not want to know when it all began to happen again. I did not ask Heimdall about you, but I did request that he tell your brother as little as possible of your activities on that realm. I did not want Thor to suffer, as your father would suffer, when you showed yourself as you really were. 

"And... you did not. Or rather, you did, but not in the way I expected. Your father respected my wishes and did not speak to me of you, but I knew he believed your banishment would not be permanent, that you would earn forgiveness, and I could not stand to think how he would be disappointed. And then, after the Bifrost was rebuilt, your brother went to find you. He came back full of how... _different_ you were. Not different because you were not doing evil things, different because you seemed to be contented, because you had friends, a new home where you were happy...

"I could not believe it. It did not seem possible. That you, who had served your _family_ as you had, who had done the things you had done, who had been quiet and miserable for so long that it seemed your natural state... I could not believe what your brother told me of your new life, that you could be happy with strangers, when you had been so utterly wretched with us. I almost did not _want_ to believe it, because of what it told me-- and not about you. 

"And then, after the first shock and disbelief had passed, I began to think," Frigga went on, almost dreamily. "I began to _remember_. And I remembered that, when you learned of your Jotun origins, you did not come to me, to ask me to explain, to let me reassure you. You did not go to your father, or to any of those I told myself were your friends. You went to the weapons vault alone, and you tried to work it out for yourself."

"I'm sorry," Loki whispered, because of course if he _had_ gone to someone, if he had not simply jumped to conclusions--

"Do not apologize," Frigga said sharply, the darkness back. "Do not apologize for having no one you could trust. Do not apologize for believing no one cared enough for you to offer you comfort. That is not _your_ fault." 

"But I should have known-- " Loki protested. Why had he not _realized?_ Why had he not been able to see? If only he had, if only he had been able to understand, to _believe_ , none of those terrible things would have seemed necessary. What was _wrong_ with him?

"How?" Frigga demanded. "How could you have _known,_ when we did not show you? We _meant_ to. We _wanted_ to. From the time you were tiny, your father and I knew there was something wrong, something we were doing wrong. You were always... anxious. Looking for something from us, wishing for it, and we were not giving it to you. We knew the ways we showed love were not ways you could comprehend, but instead of changing _our_ ways, we expected _you_ , a _baby_ , to come to understand _us._

"And, of course, you never did, because we never helped you. You simply became used to the idea we did not love you, and tried to teach yourself to accept it. When you stopped _trying_ , I pretended not to see the difference. I told myself that it was your way, to be quiet and sullen, even though you had been so... desperately... affectionate when you were small. I did not let myself see how much you had changed. I did not allow myself to see the truth, which was that you had given up.

"When you and Thor were very young, when he was so boisterous and loving, you followed him everywhere and always seemed content with him. You would think your father and I would have noticed that you were happy with Thor because he was always hugging you, and petting you, and uneasy with us because we did not." She looked over his head, and he thought that other, younger Loki was very close to her now.

"And then, when he made his new friends, decided he was too big a boy to play with his little brother all the time-- was too grown-up to be openly affectionate to that same little brother anymore-- " 

Loki looked away. He remembered, very clearly, the desolation of realizing he had lost Thor, too, that even his brother did not love him after all. And he remembered the desperate intensity of his attachment to Thor, who was _all he had._ It struck him again that it was not after all so strange, that a little boy like his brother had been would have wanted to escape from such an enormous, unasked-for responsibility. It must have been a daunting weight on his small shoulders. No wonder he had sought escape among his friends.

His mother went on, "You would think we would have had the intelligence to realize what a dreadful loss that was to you, the only creature in Asgard who showed you affection in a way you could understand, and he had taken it away. No wonder you hated Thor's friends so much." Loki looked up, and his mother gave a wintry smile. "Oh, yes, we knew it at the time, but we assumed you would _work it out._ It was so much easier, to decide everything would come right and leave it alone, than to change our own ways and do something that did not come naturally to us, that was hard. 

"And we thought it was working, your father and I, we thought you were finding a place with them, at least up until you cut Sif's hair and they nearly killed you. I blamed Thor for that, of course, but I was also angry at him for abandoning you-- as if it was the responsibility of _a little boy,_ who did not know that you had _already_ been abandoned, to reassure you. As if it was not my place, and your father's place, to do that. 

"And afterward, of course, you went right back to holding onto the edge of their group, in spite of what they had done to you, and I knew it was because you had nowhere and no one else. I did not know what to do about it, and so I did nothing. I pretended to believe it was all right after all. 

"I thought about that a great deal, when I finally began to really ask myself why my son had done such desperate and terrible things." Frigga fell silent, looking at nothing at all. Fresh tears welled in her eyes, and she whispered, "I also thought about your Jotun mother. She _died_ trying to protect you, and I could not even help you make friends with a group of children."

"Mother, don't. That is unfair," Loki choked out. There were times when it was obvious what had to be done, when the decision was plain and all that was required was great courage. Gunnlod had it, but so did Frigga. Loki had always instinctively known Frigga would gladly die for Thor. He supposed he also believed, now, that she would also have given her life for him. 

Gunnlod, heroic as she was, raising a runt of a child on Jotunheim, might not have known how to help him make friends, either. He would tell his mother this, he would remind her, just as soon as he found his voice. 

Before he could, his mother was speaking again. "I thought, too, of our conversation in your father's chamber, the day the guards brought you Gungnir." Her thumbs rubbed circles of warmth on the backs of Loki's cold hands. "I knew, I realized afterward, that whatever you had done, it was not with the intention beforehand of seizing the throne, because you looked so overcome, and… you so wanted to live up to the responsibility. I saw that, and I wanted to encourage you. I can hear my own words so plainly, telling you that you were a good son." Loki blushed and cringed. His mother tightened her grip on his hands. "And the thing that strikes me about that is how _surprised_ you looked, surprised that I would say such a thing, and suspicious too, wondering what was behind my words, what new lies and manipulations I intended. 

"And I asked myself, why should you react like that, to such a remark? Surely I told you that often, it is the truth so I must have done, but you know, as I think back, I cannot remember a single other time when I did. I _thought_ it, I _knew_ it, but apparently I believed that what I knew, you did not have to be told, and so I never said it. 

"And there I sat, on the opposite side of the bed, with your father between us like a barricade, as though I feared you. And I spoke of our being your parents as if asserting my rights over you, as if that meant you were not permitted to question us, to be hurt or angry no matter what we had done. I did not touch you, and I never told you I love you. After all the lies I had already told, perhaps you would not have believed me anyway, but I did not even _try_ to find a way to comfort you, even though I knew, I _knew,_ how desperately you needed it. 

"And then-- _then_ I turned the talk to Thor, and to your father, as if your shock, and hurt, and the fact your entire life was lies, as if that was a mere inconvenience, easily dismissed, worth no more to me than ten words. I told myself you were trying to be brave, and that pressing the issue would make you uncomfortable-- but it was _I_ who was uncomfortable, I who had rebuked you for lying now revealed as a greater liar than you ever dreamed of. It was easier for _me_ , if you did not tell me what was really in your heart, if I could pretend you were calm, that you accepted and understood and were not hurt or angry. And so I did not ask what you felt, and gave you no reason to believe I cared, or would listen if you tried to tell me. 

"And really, I had never listened to your griefs and your fears when you were a child, that was for nursemaids and governesses-- for your brother, before he rejected you, too-- so why would you offer me your trust, when I had never tried to earn it? 

"And then the guards came, and gave you Gungnir, and I told you to _make your father proud._ " Frigga shook her head. "Why did I use those words? Why did I put it like that? Would it have been so hard to say what was true, that I _knew_ you would make your father and me proud, because you had always done so before? Would it have killed me, to tell you that we loved you always, and were proud of you always, and knew you would do your best for the realm? 

"It was a slip of the tongue, a stupid thing to say, but... the look on your face. I should have realized you had taken it as a _challenge_ , as though I was offering you a single chance to earn your father's respect, and mine, and if you failed you would never get another-- " Frigga's face crumpled, and she cried out, "Why did I _do_ that to you, when I love you so much, and have always been so proud of you? I am your _mother_ , and I was unable even to teach you to trust me. What is _wrong_ with me?"

Loki looked on in horror as his mother let go of his hands, to clamp hers over her twisting mouth. And then he was struggling to sit up and put his arms around her, ignoring the pain as he moved. 

"Don't. Please, Mother, don't," he begged, guilty and horrified. 

Frigga caught her breath, unable to stop the flow of her words. 

"I thought about all these things," she went on relentlessly, voice broken and gasping. "And then I began to see, to realize, the things you did-- they were not done for no reason at all. I saw that I had a part in them, and your father, and your brother, and everyone here in this court."

"No, you didn't," Loki pleaded. "Really, you did not. It was me. It was my doing-- "

"To which we contributed. It was not just you, not solely your fault. If all of us had done things differently, none of this had to happen." Frigga took his hands again. "Forgiving you was hard, because I first had to realize what you had done, and who you had done it to, and then I had to realize _why, why_ it was possible, what I had done to you, what all of us had done to you, as much as what you had done to us. You are not evil, and you did not do the things you did simply because you are evil." She brushed with her fingertips at the hair falling across his brow, slid her hand to rest on his cheek, trapping his tears against her palm. "You think it is too easy, to simply accept our forgiveness. We forgive you because we know all these things now, know it was not just you. And if you accept our forgiveness, that means you also forgive us. I am sorry. I am so sorry. Please, Loki. Forgive us, and let us forgive you, and let this finally end. Please."

Loki could think of nothing to say in response to this, so he hitched himself painfully to a sitting position, and put his arms around his mother. 

~oOo~

Loki slept until the light outside the window faded. By then he was feeling well enough to be restless. Eir, who was there when he woke, excused herself on the grounds of an errand, and was gone just long enough for him to find some clothing he could bear to wear, and slip out. He did not fool himself into believing Eir's action was not deliberate. A short time later he found himself, hardly by conscious decision, in the library. 

He was poring over some of the old books that had fascinated him as a child when his brother came looking for him. 

"What are you doing, out of bed?" Thor demanded. Loki glanced up, hand still on the page before him. 

"I wanted to look at some old friends," he explained. Thor brushed a gentle hand against the back of Loki's head, then walked around the table. He sat down in a chair opposite, and leaned forward with his arms folded on the table surface. 

"I remember you and your old friends," he said. "You were always reading of faraway realms. I wondered what fascination they held for you. Can you tell me about them?"

"I was deciding where I would go," Loki explained, dreamily. When Thor did not speak, he went on, "When I came here, to read of other lands, I was planning-- well, it was not really a plan… I thought I would leave someday, find another realm, somewhere I could belong. I was remembering that, earlier today. At first I thought I would do something, some great deed, and earn love and welcome that way-- I was never very clear about what the deed would be, you understand, in daydreams it could be anything. Some great heroic feat of magic, perhaps.

"And then I thought, I imagined, that when I found the right place I would not need to do anything special at all, that it would be enough to just be me." Loki smiled at the page, remembering. "I considered the Nine Realms, to begin with, and then I realized that would not work, I would still only be the other prince of Asgard, still in your shadow. That was when I began to read about places even farther away, where no one would know me, and no one would know you, and I would be enough. I knew it was only imagining," he added, looking up. "I knew it was not real, but I felt happy while I imagined, and it made up for…" He gestured vaguely, a gesture that encompassed everything, and looked down at the book again. 

"So you made up these stories for yourself?" Thor asked. Loki nodded, turning a page. "Were there others?"

"Oh, certainly. When we were still in the nursery, I used to pretend Hildr came back. Or, later, I would pretend some other children arrived at court, and they were more interested in magic than in fighting, and they became _my_ friends, and I didn't need you or your friends any longer. And then you missed me, you were sorry I did not care to play with you anymore. And sometimes my new friends and I were kind, and allowed you to join us. Not always, of course, I was not _that_ kind, even in pretending." Loki laughed to himself, without looking up. "Or I would pretend something happened to you, and I rescued you, and then you… then everyone… Really, Thor, I see now that I became delusional at a very young age. The marvel is only that it took so long for me to become dangerous." He laughed again, without humour, and, looking down at the book before him, said quietly, "Of course, I knew they were only stories. And after a while they no longer held any comfort, they wore out, and so they were abandoned. And I thought it was all right, the way things were. I was used to it. I thought I could stand it. 

"And then you were to be crowned, and that was simply too much. I knew I would lose you forever, that you would finally send me away, and there would no longer be any hope for me at all. You were the only one who had ever loved me, and you would be lost to me. I... I could not let that happen."

Thor winced. "I wish I could tell you that you were mistaken, but... I do not know what I would have done. I had been so angry at you for so long that I had forgotten how much I missed you. I am sorry, brother."

"As am I," Loki replied. "I was so sure of what you would do, and I simply could not stand it. I had tried for so long to control myself, to force all the loneliness into a box and latch the lid, but it came bursting out, and the anger, and the jealousy, and the fear… 

"And I did such terrible things. It was as if I could not stop: I would do something, and then it seemed I had to do something else, and always becoming angrier and less… less rational. I... I hated you so much, in spite of how much I love you. 

"It was as if all those pitiful little stories were coming to life, and I could find a way to make them true, only the angry ones-- I told myself angry stories, too, terrible stories, I was ashamed of them but I did it anyway-- the angry ones kept getting in the way, kept taking over. It was as if I was not thinking at all, I was only acting out the stories I had made up so long ago. It was as if everyone else was only make-believe, everyone except me, and I was not really hurting anyone." He wiped his eyes and went on, "And it was comforting, the way the stories were comforting, until I began to realize what I was doing, and that I could not stop myself." 

He pushed the book away, and Thor leaned forward, touched his forearm-- his fingers were bandaged, as if he, too, had been burned. "Loki, what has brought this on?"

"I… Mother came to see me. She told me… she spoke of blaming herself, of all of you blaming yourselves, for what I did-- feeling that if I did not let you forgive me then it meant _I_ did not forgive _you_ , and… " He could not go on.

Thor, his hand still warm on Loki's arm, spoke gently. "There is something I have wondered, about that." Loki looked up at the blurry outline of his brother, and Thor said, "You have never asked for our forgiveness." His fingers tightened on Loki's arm, as though to prevent him fleeing before he heard Thor out. "You have apologized, again and again, but you have never asked us to forgive you. Why not?"

"How could I?" Loki blurted. "After what I did, to all of you? How could I ask that of you, make such a demand, as if I had any right-- ?"

"But I do," Thor reminded him. "You do believe that, my brother? It is not... not just something you say, a pretense so that I will not be angry or disappointed?"

Loki swallowed. "I do. I believe you. It is just-- "

"And do you forgive me?" Thor insisted. "You told me that you did."

"Of course," Loki whispered. "Of course I do."

"So it is not you and me?" Thor asked. "It is Mother and Father." Loki lowered his eyes. Thor rubbed his arm. "Mother came and spoke to me, too, after she left you with Eir. Can you not understand? You _felt_ entirely alone in Asgard, but you _were not_ alone-- not, at least, in the sense there was no one to see what was happening. Can you not understand, Mother and Father know they should have done something to help you _centuries_ ago, instead of waiting until it was too late and all that was left was to regret. That is how they can forgive you, and why they need you to forgive them. Can you not see that?"

"I do," Loki promised. "I... that is what Mother spoke of. But... There should be nothing to forgive. Annie told me once they did their best, and she was right. They did as much as they could, to be good to me, to love me."

"But they did not," Thor said quietly. "Annie is very kind, but she is wrong. Mother has told me as much and Father admitted it long ago: they knew perfectly well something was wrong, that you needed more from them, but they pretended it did not matter, so that they could stop worrying about it. And, in doing so, they taught you to think that _you_ did not matter to _them._ Can you not see that they _feel_ responsible because they _were_ responsible, at least for that much, and brushing them away, telling them there is no need for their forgiveness, would be the same as telling them they do not matter to you, either?" Thor paused, looked uncertain. "Loki, they _do_ matter to you…?" 

"Of course they do," Loki replied, wiping his eyes again. "It is not that I do not forgive _them._ It is that I cannot forgive _myself. I_ was the one… _I_ made the choices. It was _me_ , not you, not anyone else. All I did to you...

"And what I did to the Jotun-- you cannot forgive me for that, or Mother and Father. Even Byleistr cannot. Nothing I do can ever make up for it, nothing, because it cannot be undone. What I did to help them, on Vanaheim and on Midgard-- it does not pay for what I did to them in the first place. It does not restore the dead to their families." 

Thor got up, walked around the table, and sat in the chair beside Loki's. After a moment he put an arm around Loki's shoulders, pulled him close, and brought the other up to encircle him, the younger brother's head tucked under the chin of the elder as though he was very young indeed.

"I know," he said quietly. "Destroying the Bifrost, stopping your attack… it does not make up for the deaths at my hand, the deaths by Mjolnir, when I took us to Jotunheim and attacked them in the first place. I try to tell myself it does, that the debt is paid and I can stop thinking about it; stop waking at night filled with guilt and shame. It never works."

"I felt quite peaceful, when I was dead," Loki admitted, his voice choked and muffled, clutching at Thor’s shirt with quietly desperate hands. "When I died like that. It was the best way: it made things even. As even as I could make them. And now-- now I am alive again, and it is still unpaid, and I don't know what I am supposed to do."

"I know," Thor said softly. "I know. As grateful as I am to have you here, alive after all-- I know." 

Loki felt Thor's arms tighten, felt his brother press a kiss to the top of his head. And then another hand rested on his shoulder, heavy and warm. He felt Thor shift as if looking up and he knew who must be standing behind him, but he kept his eyes clenched shut, pretending not to. 

And then he could no longer pretend, because his father’s voice said quietly, 

"You both speak of guilt. Do you really think you are the only ones who feel it?" Loki did not sit up until Thor released him, and then he raised his head and looked into the one pale eye. It was hard to meet the steady gaze. Odin said quietly, "Do you think I am not also troubled by the knowledge of all the times I have done wrong? 

"We have made mistakes with you, your mother and I, with you and with your brother. We have been rulers when we should have been parents, turned a blind eye to our own errors, left faults uncorrected, failed to trust when we should have been honest with both of you.” He squeezed Loki’s shoulder gently, and then let go. “These were indeed mistakes, made despite sincere love for both of you. But not everything I have done wrong has been by mistake. I have misjudged situations out of prejudice and anger, have allowed myself to be vengeful when I should have shown mercy.” 

Focusing on Loki’s rigid, frightened face, he added gently, “Not toward you. It is indeed true that I have often been an unwise father, but always in my heart a loving one. I speak now as a king, one who wields power and who, in spite of my best efforts, has not always done so wisely. You are not the only one who has much to feel guilty for. Do not tell yourself you are worse than you really are.”

“But it is not the same thing, Father,” Loki protested, unable to stop himself. “You do not deliberately set out to do that which is evil, nor Thor either. I… I did it on purpose.”

“I was motivated by spite and anger, Loki. I hardly think that is not deliberately doing evil,” Thor argued quietly. 

Odin did not look at his elder son. Gazing intently at Loki, he said, “This is what you believe?”

“I have to believe it,” Loki replied. “It is true. I knew better. I know what is right and what is wrong.”

“You were not yourself,” Odin reminded him. Loki shrugged, more in frustration than in negation. “But that is no excuse?” 

Loki shook his head. “It cannot be. I _did_ it. I must have known what I was doing.”

Odin sighed. “And you believe you should be punished, and still wonder why I have not done so?” Loki looked down at his own clasped, twisting hands, nodded. He felt his father lean toward him. “My son, as much as I love you, if you truly had acted deliberately, if your actions had really been under your control, I would indeed have punished you severely. 

"The fact you were simply banished, your magic left intact-- that strikes you as unwarranted leniency, does it?" Loki, deeply ashamed, could not bring himself to answer. He knew what he deserved, but that did not mean he was not afraid to suffer it. Odin went on, "I could have taken away your magic, and your soul with it. You know what such a sentence entails: none punished in that manner has ever survived more than a few days. I did not believe your circumstances warranted death. Even temporarily binding your powers would have driven you further into madness, made your recovery impossible. I did not believe you so far beyond hope as to wish to take away any chance you had." 

Loki continued to stare down at his hands, remembering what his mother had said, about his father's stubborn _hope_. It had not had much to do with the reality of the situation, when Loki had fallen. 

And then Loki's eyes left his own hands and rested on his father's, instead. Father, too, had blisters on his fingers and palms, and Loki suddenly felt his throat close. 

"Will I ever stop hurting you all?" he choked out. 

"Hurt-- ?" Odin began, and then turned his hands, palm-up, as though examining them. "Do you mean this? It is not very serious, Loki. You did worse to me the day we met." Loki's shoulders hunched, and Odin's rough hand came up to cradle his cheek. The Allfather murmured, "You were so small. Small, and afraid, and so beautiful." 

Loki could not help it, he looked up at that. Odin went on, "I heard a cry in the temple. It sounded like an Aesir baby-- it had never occurred to me that a Jotun child would cry like an Aesir. Do you know, I had never seen a Jotun infant before, only... soldiers. You could not have been more than a few weeks old. I did not know Jotun children were beautiful." Odin's gaze was kind as he went on, "I could not leave you there, alone with your dead mother, and so I picked you up. You were too young and small for your touch to hurt me very much, and anyway my hands have always been rough." Odin looked faraway. "You looked up at me and cried in terror-- and then you changed, your skin and your eyes, until you looked Aesir. Until you _were_ Aesir.

"You were still terrified, but I held you, and all I could think was the same thing I had thought when I first held your brother: _mine._ " He looked down at Loki, focused. "I could not make you understand, in the vault, when I tried to explain it to you, but _mine, my son_ \-- it does not really mean ownership, or possession. It is instinct, responsibility-- what a parent feels when he first beholds his child, before he yet knows who that child is. You are mine in the same way your brother is mine, and I could not leave you there, alone and frightened, waiting to die. 

"I wrapped my cloak around you, and... I suppose you forgot what I looked like, when you could not see me, because then you tried to cling to me, in spite of my armour, wanting me to help you, wanting to stay alive. I brought you home, and swore Heimdall to secrecy, and gave you to your mother. And so you became _ours._

"And then… then, I suppose, I forgot you had ever not been. I forgot there had ever been a time before you were ours, and so I did not think there was anything in... in your heart, that needed to be repaired. I never stopped to think there could be anything more you needed from me, or from your mother. 

"When you learned the truth, you were so angry, and so… so hurt, so sure I must have had some heartless, expedient purpose in mind… It is true that I tried to think of one, at first, to justify what I had done, why I had done it, but no plan presented itself that would not have brought more danger to you than I was willing to risk… But you were so quick to believe the worst of my intentions that I knew... I had gone terribly wrong. It was not right that you did not trust me, and you were not the one to blame for that. 

"But I had not the strength to explain to you, to make you understand, and then I could only watch in my sleep as you tried, again and again, to win what you did not know you already had… 

"I wanted to stop you, to help you, but things had gone too far, there seemed no way to save you here in Asgard, and so I left you your magic and I let you go. If my choices were between destroying you for actions you could hardly remember committing, or letting you escape, then only one choice was possible. All I could do for you was enable you to remember what you really wanted, before the anger and madness, and to help you find companions who could offer you aid. The rest was up to you. 

"You were missing for… a long time… and I could only hope and believe that _this time_ I had finally done the right thing. And then Heimdall found you in Midgard, beyond our reach but not beyond his sight, and it quickly became clear you were worthy of that second chance, that you had not wasted it." 

Odin paused for a moment, waiting for Loki to speak. Loki could not, and Odin sighed. "You are still not convinced. You remember what you did?" Loki nodded again, although he was not being truthful. Most of the details were now blurry to him, still more his state of mind. “And you remember what you were thinking when you did it?”

“I remember… making plans. Deciding what I would do,” Loki muttered, once again lowering his eyes.

“Look at me, my son,” Odin said kindly. Reluctantly, Loki obeyed. His father reached out, gently cradled Loki's head in his hands. “You will remember,” Odin said quietly, then moved his hands so his palms covered Loki’s ears, as if to trap his thoughts within his mind, and held him. 

This was not like the spell that had made it possible for Loki to accept help and friendship, left him able to make a new start. Odin had referred to that as a cleansing, and indeed afterward Loki had felt scrubbed raw and emptied out. It had been very painful, had left him feeling as though he had been terribly ill, but for at least a little while in the aftermath he had not even had the strength to lie to himself, let alone to the creatures who mysteriously offered him compassion and friendship. 

This was different. Loki could feel a turmoil rising within him, as if dozens of voices were talking and whispering and shouting at him, telling him he was a monster, telling him no one loved him and no one ever would, telling him there was so much so terribly wrong with him that nothing could ever make up for it, telling him he had been betrayed, wronged, that he did not deserve any better, urging him to fight back, to lash out, to take revenge on everyone who had done these things to him, offering him ways to repair the situation, to save himself, to be loved after all, to fix everything. 

The voices rose in volume, in spite, in rage, in desperation and hope and confusion, all of them telling him things that could not possibly all be true and yet each of them insisting on being believed, hissing and coiling around his brain. At the same time, the anger and loneliness and hurt in his heart turned into a pulsing, burning pain that filled him, made it impossible to concentrate upon anything else. 

Loki closed his eyes, tried to stand it, tried to make himself endure, it was less than he deserved, but it was like being trapped with a dragon, a giant steam engine, and a carillon of tuneless, clanking bells. He tried to catch hold of a thought and hold onto it, but no sooner had he grasped an idea than it was snatched away and whirled into the abyss within his mind. He thought he remembered hatred and anger, expected those to be foremost in the tangled mess of his thoughts, but in fact fear and confusion were even more powerful. 

And foremost of all was the conviction that if the monsters could be eradicated, if the monsters were all gone, then the monster inside him would also die, and he would be left behind, safe, and everyone else would be safe, even from him, and… and...

None of it made any sense, but he could feel himself even now clutching at the threads of ideas and plans and pleas and promises that this time, _this time_ he could make it work, could make it turn out, could have a happy ending, and the noise and burning were more than he could stand, and…

Loki suddenly realized he was twisting in his father’s grasp, clawing at his father's hands, trying to free himself, to escape from the confusion and madness and noise…

And then Odin’s hands had moved, and he could hear the world around himself again. The cacophony inside his head subsided, the pain in his chest ebbed, his head was cradled as though he was too weak to hold it up for himself, which was nearly true, and he heard his father saying softly, 

"If you still believe yourself fully responsible for what you did, if you still believe your mind was rational, I will do as you ask and punish you for your crimes. But you have been punishing yourself as though you acted with a clear mind, and that, my child, is simply not just. You will never be entirely free of regret, or the awareness of amends to be made, any more than your brother or I-- or even some of your friends-- ever will be. But the share of the burden that is truly yours is enough for you to carry." 

Loki, now clinging to Odin's hands as they held his head, felt himself sob. And then Odin instead of Thor was in the chair next to Loki's, pulling him close. Loki wrapped his arms around his father, buried his face against the curve of his neck, his voice a broken whisper: _"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."_ His father's arms were strong and warm around him, his voice almost a croon: _"I know,"_ and _"I love you."_ His brother's hand cradled the back of his head, and both of them held him, as he cried in remorse and weariness and relief.

Finally, when the storm was over, Odin said quietly, 

“Come now. Let us go find your mother. We love you very much, and we have been very worried about you.”

~oOo~

It was not an audience with the king and queen of Asgard, not really. It was just Loki and his brother and their parents, together in the royal couple's private chambers. Loki could not remember the last time he had been in his parents' private quarters, but he thought he might have been in the nursery. 

He was quite sure there had never before been a time when all four of them had simply sat together and talked like a family. It was a good feeling, to simply talk to each other, and if Loki was still weak enough to cry about nothing in particular, well, he was not made to feel ashamed of it. Nor, in fact, was he alone. 

There was no way in decency Loki could ask to take up residence in the envoys' hall again, his chambers had to be faced, but when he retired for the night, Thor had followed him as though it was the most natural thing in the world. 

And when he woke in the middle of the night, cold and with the dying screams of the Deathwing echoing in his ears, Thor had scarcely wakened, had simply wrapped his arms around his younger brother as though they were both back in the nursery. 

And, warmed and comforted, Loki fell almost immediately back into dreamless sleep.


	36. Chapter 36

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we come to the end of this adventure. Thanks to everyone who has read, commented, and generally just been there. Your fortitude should be celebrated in song and story!
> 
> Warning for another huge chapter. (And it actually could be worse, I left some stuff out when I realized just how unwieldy it was getting!) There was simply no point in splitting this chapter into parts when the overall purpose was the same, but I apologize for going all _Return of the King_ on you.
> 
> Also, industrial-strength fluff. I thank you in advance for your patience on both scores.

Annie supposed a human would assume that, she being a ghost and therefore dead, her heart couldn't pound. It turned out the regular human would have been wrong: the sight of Thor walking toward them across the roof, out of the maelstrom created by the Bifrost, _smiling_ , made her-- her shade, Loki would call it-- remember the physical sensations of fear and anxiety and most of all _hope._ And it felt like her heart was going to come bursting right out of her chest.

Thor was an Avenger, and Annie would normally have let him speak to Steve and Tony and the others first, waited for them to settle any pending Avengers business, before she interfered. It would have seemed appropriate to do so. But at the moment, Annie did not care a hang for what was appropriate. Thor was back, and he was smiling, and for the first time since Loki had crashed to the street tangled with the Deathwing two days before, Annie did not feel as if she had a Jotun standing on her ribs. 

"Is he all right?" she demanded, still on the other side of the roof because nobody wanted to get too close to the business end of the Bifrost while it was still active. At the moment, Annie didn't care. She started toward Thor, was aware of Mitchell and George close behind her, not caring either, and even though the smile could only mean one thing she repeated, "Is he?"

"Is he okay?" Mitchell echoed, possibly for the benefit of the Avengers, or possibly because he couldn't help himself. 

"Yes," Thor replied gently. "My brother is almost entirely recovered. He would have come in person, but travel is still somewhat taxing for him, and we persuaded him not to overextend himself."

"OhthankGod," Tony said, as though it was all one word, and of course unable to hear Annie having mild hysterics at the idea of _anyone_ persuading Loki not to overdo it. "I really thought… when he hit the ground, I was sure he was dead."

"He was dead," George said, very quietly. 

Not so quietly that Thor couldn't hear him, however. 

"Yes," Thor agreed. "He was. But he asked me to relay to you: it transpired he was actually only _mostly_ dead. He told me his friends would understand what that meant."

What it meant was, Annie suddenly found herself bawling like a complete idiot in the middle of the roof of Stark Tower, while the boys patted her back and pretended they weren't crying, too. 

"Sorry," she sniffled finally. "I'm just relieved." Thor wrapped an arm around her, pulled her close, and briefly rested his chin on top of her head in a way that reminded her of his brother.

"That, as Jane would say, makes two of us." Releasing Annie, Thor stepped back and addressed the group in general: "I have come to deliver not only this news, but also an invitation from the Allfather, to join us in Asgard for a celebration of the successful alliance between Asgard and Midgard, and our new accord with Jotunheim." 

"Our planet gets saved from aliens, and Asgard's the one that throws the party?" Clint observed. 

Thor's face suddenly relaxed into a grin. 

"Well," he explained, "we do throw very good parties." 

~oOo~

There was quite a crowd, and considerable chatter, in Heimdall's observatory after the Avengers' delegation arrived, but Thor's booming voice cut across everything. 

"My friends!" he exclaimed. "Welcome to Asgard!"

Most of the Avengers had not, of course, experienced travel by Bifrost before. As a result, they were still trying to put their eyes back in their heads when Annie, George, and Mitchell went sidling between them. It wasn't that they weren't grateful to Thor for the welcome, just that they no longer needed the orientation. What they did need to do was to look for--

"Hello," Loki said, pushing off from the wall he had been leaning against, and stepping forward. 

The costume he'd worn during the battle had taken quite a beating, even before he'd gotten hit with the spell from the Casket, so it should have been no real surprise he was dressed in Asgardian clothes. They probably came from the wardrobe in his old chambers. Back home, Loki almost never wore green, in fact he almost seemed to have an aversion to it, but, in spite of his alarming pallor and the bruised-looking circles under his eyes, it was actually not a bad colour on him. 

Nobody was surprised to see he wasn't wearing armour, which Loki probably would have considered a provocation to the court. His tunic and soft trousers had an informal, if not relaxed, look about them, suggesting they were possibly the Asgardian equivalent of jeans and a hoodie-- which certainly wouldn't have suited the old Loki who never let his guard down. There was an un-broken-in quality to his clothing that indicated it was something he hadn't worn very often in his previous life. Maybe he'd actually chosen this outfit specifically because there were few memories associated with it. He was still so thin that it didn't fit particularly well, and he certainly didn't look natural in it.

On the other hand, there was a softness in and around Loki's eyes, in his whole bearing, a lack of tension, that hadn't been there since he'd left for work on the morning of his disappearance. 

On second thought, Annie realized as she approached him, she had _never_ seen Loki look this peaceful.

He smiled rather sheepishly, held out his hands in apology, and began, 

"I appear to have wasted that lovely farewell speech. I really am sor-- mmph!" Whatever he intended to say turned into a muffled squeak of surprise as Annie, with an air of taking no prisoners, caught hold of the front of his tunic, pulled him forward, and kissed him hard enough to render both of them breathless. Loki flailed a little as he was jerked forward, but caught his balance as he wrapped his arms around her. 

When Annie finally pulled back, Loki looked up to find George and Mitchell grinning at them. 

"Just as well she shut you up," Mitchell remarked, reaching over Annie to ruffle Loki's hair. "You were about to say something really stupid." 

"As soon as we get home," George announced, "I'm going to buy a water pistol, specially for when you start talking like that. And I intend to use it, just so you know."

"I've got a spray bottle I used to use when I had to dampen my hair," Annie contributed, still with one arm firmly around Loki's waist. "I think it's in the cupboard under the sink in the bathroom. You can use that."

"Good idea," Mitchell congratulated. Loki, his smile suddenly wobbly, looked around at his friends and managed to blurt, 

"I really am terribly glad to see you all." 

"Oh, shut it," George muttered, partly into Loki's shoulder, as he embraced him. 

Loki had just straightened up and released George (and also Mitchell, but somehow not Annie) when he was seized again by the front of his tunic, and found himself gazing down into the fanatical-looking eyes of Tony Stark. 

"Pull a stunt like that one more time and, magical consultant or no magical consultant, I swear to God I'll personally kick your ass from here to Valhalla," the Iron Man announced. Loki blinked down at the human, and then his face lit up in an impish smile. He caught Tony by the back of the head with his free hand, pulled him forward, and kissed him firmly on the forehead. 

"I love you too, Tony," he smirked, and released the man. Tony made an inarticulate noise of menace that somehow entirely failed to be intimidating, patted Loki on the chest, and walked away. He joined Steve, who made a complicated face that combined apology for Tony's behaviour with pleasure at seeing Loki upright and conscious. 

Loki sighed happily. "I should probably be ashamed to confess how pleased I am, to see such evidence that you missed me, but-- Ouch!" he interrupted himself, starting violently.

"Sorry, I seem to have pinched you," Annie remarked cheerfully. "That's what you get for saying silly things when you're not wearing armour."

"Also, water pistol," George threatened. 

"We did miss you," Mitchell said kindly. "And surely you're not such an idiot that you thought we wouldn't."

"Well, no," Loki admitted. "But it is still gratifying, to see it for myself." 

Mitchell smiled. "Fair enough. How's Asgard been treating you, this time around?"

"I have not really seen anyone except my family and Eir, the healer," Loki admitted. Correctly interpreting the others' silence as an indication they wanted to hear more, he added, "For a being who talks as much as I do, it seems strange even to me to admit that this is the first time I can ever remember really talking to my parents, but it has been… pleasant." He considered his choice of word, then amended, "What I mean to say is, it has been of great comfort to me, and I think perhaps to all of us." 

"I can tell," Annie said. "Your shoulders aren't anything like as rigid as they always used to be in Asgard. You always looked like you were waiting for someone to hit you."

 _"Looked like-- ?"_ George echoed, and the other three made faces of agreement. 

"It seems unlikely that will happen on this particular visit," Loki assured them. 

"Among other things, even if _you_ kept your cool, _Thor_ would kill them," Annie said. 

"Yes, if there was anything left after my mother was finished with them," Loki murmured. 

"Oh, yeah?" Mitchell asked, as the others brightened up. "Progress?"

"Considerable," Loki replied, with a smile. 

“That’s good,” Annie said softly. “That’s _wonderful_.”

“Yes,” Loki agreed. He shook his head, the smile becoming slightly rueful, and added, “She has, perhaps, still too strong a tendency toward wishful thinking-- she tells herself, for instance, that the Jotun have really forgiven me, when I think we can all agree that what Byleistr offered fell several steps short of that.” Recalling the encounter, Annie had to admit Loki was right about that. "Not," he added hastily, "that I am ungrateful, or ask for more. And… we have talked, my family and I, and we seem to be approaching some understanding of each other, which is greatly to be wished for. We… we are all willing to try.”

Annie squeezed his hand, and then Loki glanced past his friends to where Thor seemed to be gathering the Avengers, prior to shepherding them out of the observatory. "It appears the Avengers are about to set out for the palace, so perhaps we should go on ahead and leave off blocking the doorway." 

~oOo~

Annie, George, and Mitchell had no reason to be alarmed about being called into the presence of the Allfather. In the first place, there really was nothing to be scared of. In the second, they were with the Avengers, who were invited guests. And besides, they had encountered Odin on a couple of informal occasions recently that confirmed that, when he was being Loki's dad rather than Asgard's king, the Allfather really wasn't scary at all. 

However, their only previous trip to the throne room had come on their first involuntary visit to Asgard, after they'd been snatched from the jaws of vampires and dumped into Heimdall's observatory with no warning, and no indication Loki could expect any sort of welcome. In fact Loki, assuming he would be blamed for defying the Allfather's edict of banishment, had worked himself into such a state over the possible horrific outcomes-- mostly, it seemed, afraid that that his friends might get tarred with the same brush and share his punishment-- that his housemates couldn't help but be frightened, too.

As things turned out, of course, nobody had gotten dragged away in chains after all. In fact, once they'd established how Loki had gotten back to Asgard (read: not his fault) and what he'd been doing when the Bifrost picked him up (read: fighting evil) the Allfather had become practically human. By the housemates' (flexible) standards of "human," anyway.

Actually, it had been clear from an early stage that Odin had known the answers to all his questions of Loki before he even asked them, that nothing Loki said was a surprise to him. It would have been less brutal to hold the entire interview someplace more private than under the eyes of an entire court who might not really have hated Loki for his entire life, but certainly had no love for him anymore. Loki had later expressed the belief the Allfather had wanted to make sure there was no misunderstanding about how Loki managed to escape punishment this time. 

Annie, privately, was of the opinion that-- since it had become clear Odin suffered from guilt as badly, if not as visibly, as Loki did-- the public nature of that interview had been mostly Odin trying to make some sort of confused amends to his son for centuries of lies and then months of rumour. As if he wanted things to be above-board and out in the open from now on, but maybe hadn't thought through whether _Loki_ might want everything to be quite as out in the open as all that. 

She was, however, also of the belief that a hidden part of Odin had wanted to thumb his nose at everyone who believed Loki's final rampage in Asgard reflected his true character rather than an explosion of pent-up desperation. Annie couldn't bring herself to begrudge Odin that-- as the interview went on, and the nature of Loki's activities on Earth was made progressively more obvious, she had found herself glaring round at the unfriendly faces that surrounded them, her expression clearly saying, _See? Not so bad!_

Despite knowing all that, the memory of how scared she had been the first time she walked into the throne room-- not, in spite of Loki's anxieties, for herself or the boys, but for Loki himself-- still infected Annie's outlook, and she found herself holding Loki's hand very firmly as they all approached the door of the huge chamber. He squeezed back, and smiled down at her, and it was with a distinct lift in her spirit _(heh)_ that Annie realized, for once, Loki wasn't nervous at all, was completely free of apprehension about what his father might do or what his reception might be. 

You had to figure, from Loki's point of view, a little thing like being temporarily killed by a monster was a small price to pay for that feeling. It was probably the first time he'd had it in his entire life. 

This time, the court wasn't assembled, and Odin wasn't on his great golden throne, towering over his subjects. Instead, he waited for his guests at the foot of the dais, and he was not alone. At his right hand was the old general, Tyr. And, looming at the Allfather's left, although somehow still not dwarfing him, were Helblindi and the Jotun general with the great curving ram's horns, the one Tony persistently referred to as "Thrym the Enchanter" even though, over the last couple of days, nobody in the group-- including Tony-- had been in much of a mood to find the joke at all funny. 

The sight of the two Jotun did make Loki's hand tighten reflexively on Annie's, before he got control of himself again. Annie glanced up and saw Loki's eyes searching the Allfather's face, as if looking for reassurance that whatever happened next would be something he could handle. He didn't look afraid of Helblindi and Thrym, Annie was glad to realize, or even distrustful of Odin (which made Annie even gladder)-- just instinctively apprehensive about the situation.

Glancing past Loki, Annie was relieved to see an expression of puzzlement on Thor's face, too. Good. As long as both brothers were equally out of the loop, there was no reason for Loki's insecurities to kick back in. 

And just as she thought that, Loki turned his head slightly toward Thor, who made a tiny face indicating his own confusion, and perhaps a slight hint of, "well, you know Father never tells us anything." It seemed to be all Loki needed, because he faced front again looking both bewildered and relieved. 

Odin had by now stepped forward, and Nick Fury detached himself from the group. 

"I bid you welcome," Odin said, and Nick Fury gave a matter-of-fact and perfectly natural bow. 

"I am glad to have the opportunity to express my gratitude, on behalf of my comrades and our realm," Fury said, the formality of his speech nearly making Annie burst into nervous giggles. It wasn't that Fury didn't positively radiate dignity, it was just that he normally expressed it.. differently. Fury, she reflected, was a bit of a shapeshifter himself.

"As do we, on behalf of our realm and our king," Helblindi spoke up next. Fury turned slightly toward the Jotun, and the old giant went on, "It is thanks to your efforts that Jotunheim was able to avoid a disastrous war, and that the means to restore our realm has been returned to us." Fury, who probably had no idea what the second part of that speech meant, inclined his head respectfully. Helblindi went on, "I come to extend an invitation from my king, for you to pay a visit, and personally receive the thanks of our people." 

Annie moved slightly closer to Loki, checked his expression again. It was perfectly impassive, and Annie suddenly wondered whether, if Odin looked at Loki, he would even realize there was anything wrong. She believed Loki when he said progress was being made, but even if he switched from king to dad right now, there was no telling whether Odin would see what she did, because surely Loki's poker face was what Asgard was used to. At home, on the other hand, Loki only wore the expression that concealed his emotions when he actually had something to hide. 

There was no reason to think Loki was included in the invitation, and Annie could tell by the sudden pinched look around his eyes that he desperately wanted to be. Not so much for the thanks-of-a-grateful-populace-- even if it was offered he'd probably never stop being too ashamed to accept it-- but…

… But, it was where he was born, and where his mother had died, and Annie suddenly knew Loki wanted to go back, even just once, as… As something besides an enemy. Just to see the place with eyes that weren't blinded with hatred, with a heart that wasn't filled with anger and fear that really had never been about the poor Jotun in the first place.

The little tell around Loki's eyes smoothed out, and as he felt Annie looking at him he glanced down with the shadow of a smile. _It's okay,_ was what he was saying, and since there was no alternative it had to be, but he really seemed to mean it. Maybe having some of the things he had always wanted meant he could now let go of the things he couldn't. Or maybe he was now so far beyond the borders of what he thought he deserved that he couldn't imagine asking for anything else. 

Annie still leaned against him and held his had in both of hers, so he'd know she was sorry this particular door was closed to him. 

And as a result she almost didn't hear Helblindi say, 

"You may, perhaps, wish to see where your late mother lies," and she and Loki realized at the same moment the words were addressed to him. His hand tightened involuntarily on hers again, as surprise made his face go suddenly open and vulnerable. 

"I… I thought… " he faltered. "You would allow me-- ?"

"My king has given the matter great thought," Helblindi said serenely, "and it seemed to him that your efforts on behalf of our realm deserve more than grudging lip service."

Annie, remembering Byleistr's words to Thor, across Loki's corpse, wondered whether the king had decided he had been hasty, or whether Helblindi had made a plea of his own on behalf of Gunnlod's child. 

Thor remembered the exchange as well, and in fact so far forgot himself as to blurt, 

"He did not seem to think so, when-- " This would have been an _ideal_ time for Odin to come out with the awful growling noise Loki had told them about, but Thor realized what he was doing and shut up on his own. 

Helblindi gave Thor a look that suggested the elder prince of Asgard was about five years old and doing something cute, and explained, 

"When Byleistr-King spoke, he was not acquainted with the entire circumstances.” To Loki, he said, “Thrym's men, when they reported the incident later, made rather a point of your refusal to allow them to serve as a diversion when you attacked the Deathwing."

A red flush was crawling up Loki's throat to his face. He muttered, "It did not occur to me to do so." Annie wanted to smack him, because he didn't seem to understand that _it hadn't occurred to him to do so._

"By which you mean, you ordered the Aesir troops out of the way and then practically begged the Jotun troops to do likewise," Thrym spoke for the first time. "And, also, to do whatever it took to protect the Casket from being exposed to the curse on the creature."

"It made rather an impression," Helblindi said dryly. "And on further consideration, Byleistr-King is of the mind that there does indeed come a time when not only should a crime be seen to have been paid for, but the page should be turned upon it."

"I… really do not deserve-- " Loki began, which was such a _Loki_ thing to say that Annie nearly pinched him again. Really, you could almost always tell when Loki really wanted something, because that was the very thing he would most steadfastly refuse to allow himself to have. Annie was just grateful that, when he had crashed into the dustbins behind the house, he had been too confused and exhausted to do anything besides let her take charge of him. If he’d realized she was trying to befriend him, he probably would have thrown himself into traffic or something. 

Except, of course, just now he was probably right: if he'd been someone Annie didn't love, who had done what he did to the Jotun, she might not have thought any kind of amends were enough, either. 

"My king thinks differently," Helblindi said mildly, which was when Annie really understood what was happening. It was evident from Loki’s expression that he was well ahead of her. 

"You would forgive me?" Loki asked, in a strangled little voice. 

Helblindi inclined his head. "Yes."

The bow Loki made to the Jotun councilor was perhaps a little lower than etiquette strictly called for, but at least it concealed the fact he was crying again. 

~oOo~

The Jotunheim Loki remembered, the one under rule by Laufey and deprived of the Casket’s power, had been a dark and hopeless place. Exactly how the Casket had been deployed was not something the Jotun cared to share with their visitors, and Loki certainly did not describe his own unnervingly successful efforts to use it was a weapon-- the only part of his makeshift plans that seemed to have worked at all, although leaving Heimdall alive had been fortuitous rather than intentional. The Casket was none of his business, never had been, and as far as he was concerned it should now and for all time be left in the hands of the true Jotun and their king. 

However, if his own resurrection had not been sufficient proof of the non-destructive possibilities of the Casket, what it had done for Jotunheim was more than evidence enough. The sky was clear and the sun sparkled on the snow and ice, living white and blue, so bright it was almost impossible for creatures without the Jotuns’ red-adapted eyes to look upon it. Alone of the Avengers’ group, only Steve seemed unmoved by the beauty of the place-- which, when one recalled his seventy years’ sleep in an icy prison, was understandable. 

Loki, for his part, still hated to be cold, but as he huddled in his cloak, for once the feeling of cold was not accompanied by fear. Instead, as he looked around, Loki was aware the moisture in his eyes was not caused solely by the glare.

There were new signs of life on the realm. Ruins were being cleared away-- some of them so fresh that Loki could not bear to look at them, others obviously left behind from the war-- and there was evidence of peaceful activity. Loki had never before seen a Jotun who was not a soldier-- well, he had no _memory_ of ever having seen one-- but as they walked from the Bifrost landing site, the people who stopped and watched them were obviously civilians.

Some more obviously than others: as they approached the palace, they passed a collection of rather humble dwellings, and Loki became aware they were under surveillance by a group of very small Jotun, none of them any bigger than George. For a moment, he thought they must be runts like himself. But after a moment their erratic, scampering movements, their shyness combined with openly staring curiosity, and something about their proportions-- particularly the size of their heads compared to their bodies-- gave the truth away. Loki realized these were actual Jotun children, young ones indeed, utterly fascinated by the strange little visitors. 

It turned out children have a great deal in common everywhere, and before long a couple of the bolder ones were following so closely that the Avengers-- who perhaps did not completely understand the situation-- were becoming uneasy. Annie, on the other hand, was beginning to giggle. 

It was perhaps unfair of Loki, to see Patrick and Trevor wherever he went, but he considered it wise to keep an eye on the situation. As a result, he was watching when one of the boys-- he was persuaded this one was a boy, though he was certainly no expert on Jotun children-- reached curiously out to touch Tony Stark’s arm. 

Tony was wearing heavy Asgardian outer clothing and a cloak, and it was quite possible a child as young as this one would be unable to do him much harm with a touch. Still, Loki reached out to intercept the boy's hand, just in case. And then Thrym turned at the crucial moment and let out a truly terrifying roar, which seemed to indicate Tony was indeed about to be injured-- or, of course, it might have been a simple rebuke for impudence. 

The child started backward, and one did not have to be a Jotun nursery teacher to recognize his expression of hurt and alarm. Loki found himself instinctively shaking off a glove and holding out his hand. The child, despite being nearly as tall as he was, grabbed it as though for comfort. Had no one ever taught this little one to be wary of strangers? 

Of course, it was quite likely he had never _seen_ a stranger before now. 

The child clutched Loki’s hand-- and then shrieked in what was manifestly startled delight, as the strange Aesir paw went blue in his grasp. It crossed Loki’s mind that he had, to the child, just turned _from_ a monster into something familiar and apparently harmless. 

The other little ones scurried forward, curiosity clearly winning the battle against either caution or respect for their elders. Thrym did not intervene again, possibly feeling Loki deserved all he got for encouraging the urchins, and Helblindi was by now watching the interaction with open amusement. The children all began to chatter excitedly at each other in the Alltongue. 

“He is a shapeshifter!” they informed each other, with a grasp of the obvious rivaling that of any young Briton. And then, addressing Loki, at least three of them said together, “Grimgerde is a shapeshifter, too!” Grimgerde was a little girl-- definitely a little girl, judging by the name-- hanging on the fringe of the group. “Show him, show him!” her comrades began to chant, apparently wishing to impress the strangers. Grimgerde, for her part, looked partly overcome with shyness and partly desperately eager to demonstrate her accomplishment. 

“I wish you would,” Loki told her, as the rest of the group-- finally realizing there was no cause for alarm-- made encouragingly friendly noises of their own. Grimgerde wriggled in embarrassed delight--

\-- and then turned into a small gray bird, her skimpy Jotun garb falling empty into the snow as she fluttered onto Loki’s shoulder. 

“Oh, well done!” Loki exclaimed, turning his head to look at the little bird, who pecked gently at his chin with her tiny beak. “I was far older than you before I mastered birds.” The bird-child preened herself and fluttered her wings, before flying back to her discarded clothing and perching on it. “Wait a moment,” Loki said, understanding her hesitation-- in the excitement of a transformation, even experienced shapeshifters sometimes forgot they would be in a state of undress when they shifted back. He released the first child’s hand, unclasped his cloak, and dropped it gently over the bird. 

A moment later there was a scuffling shape underneath the cloth, and then Grimgerde flung off the cloak with what amounted to a cry of “Ta-da!” which was greeted with applause from the visitors. Loki bowed elaborately to the child before swinging his cloak back over his shoulders. 

“Lovely,” he assured her, and then Thrym made another gruff noise and the children scampered away. 

“You should not encourage them so,” Thrym growled, although truly, he did not sound very angry. 

“He can’t help it,” Annie replied boldly. “He’s very good with children of all species.”

“Even horses,” Tony said helpfully, and George threw a snowball at him. 

Loki, meanwhile, was having some trouble with the clasp of his cloak. His hands were suddenly terribly cold, and everything seemed far too bright once again. Of course the Jotun had children. He had known that. He had _been one_. And yet he had turned the Bifrost on their realm with less mercy than he showed toward _ants--_

There were hands at his throat, helping him with the clasp, and Thor said quietly, 

"I did not think of their children, either." 

Loki found himself wondering exactly when his brother had been given the ability to read his thoughts. 

"They behaved as though I am worthy of their trust," Loki pointed out, in a desperate undertone. 

"And now, you are," Thor pointed out calmly. "You are a talented sorcerer, brother, but even you cannot make time flow in any direction except forward." Cloak fastened, Thor rested his hands briefly on Loki's shoulders, then released him. 

Loki meekly put his gloves back on, and the group resumed its trek toward the palace. 

~oOo~

For obvious reasons, Loki was not singled out when the Avengers were presented as saviours to the people of Jotunheim-- or at any rate to a selected group of representatives of the people of Jotunheim. Byleistr-King addressed himself almost exclusively to Odin and Nick Fury, and Fury was the one who accepted the formal thanks of Jotunheim on behalf of the Avengers. 

Still, the Jotun king did speak briefly to Loki in his turn, as he did to the others. And none of the king's council actually spat at him, which was more than he deserved. Loki was left with the impression he would continue to exercise wisdom if he stayed away from Jotunheim, at least when traveling on his own, but really, he had been given colder receptions in Asgard before he had tried to usurp anything or wipe out anyone. 

"I wonder, my king, if you could perhaps excuse the Allfather and his son, as well as myself, for a short time," Helblindi said quietly to Byleistr. The Jotun ruler did not seem surprised at the request. Odin having apparently spent part of Loki's recovery meeting with Byleistr and his council, presumably this had been arranged between them in advance. 

It crossed Loki's mind to wonder whether Odin had also had a hand in Byleistr's offer of forgiveness, but he squelched that idea ruthlessly. Then he followed Odin and Helblindi out of the palace, across what was now recognizable as a courtyard, and toward a ruin that seemed to be in the process of reclamation. Loki's heart began to pound as they drew closer. 

"The temple was badly damaged in the last days of the war," Helblindi explained. "Laufey set an ambush here when the first wave of Aesir soldiers entered the city, and it was partly destroyed in the ensuing battle." Loki nodded, looking from Helblindi to Odin and back. They entered the temple, and once again Helblindi spoke. "The altar still stands, as you see."

"Yes," Loki murmured, thinking perhaps he was supposed to be saying something. 

"Your mother was here," Odin spoke up suddenly, gesturing to one side of the altar. "You were-- " he stepped forward, indicating the floor behind the altar. "I would not have known you were there, if you had not cried out to me." 

Loki chewed his lip and nodded. Helblindi cast a rather odd look at Odin, perhaps at the suggestion Loki had deliberately called to the Allfather. Loki conceded it was a notion more fanciful than one would expect of Odin, but for his part Loki found it warming, and Helblindi was too old and too canny to argue with a king. 

Loki looked around, trying to imagine the scene, to picture the wary soldier-king entering the temple, alone-- 

Alone. What was he doing, the king, in this place by himself?

"Why were you alone, Father?" he heard himself ask, then suppressed a wince at his own question and waited for the _noise._

It did not come.

"I was not alone, not with Gungnir," Odin replied quietly, walking around the altar to look at the spot where Loki had lain. "There was little for me to fear, and I did not like to bring troops all the way into the sanctuary. I wished to... to try to communicate with whatever powers might dwell here. I hoped they might… speak to me." He looked around, words trailing off, and both Loki and Helblindi let him. After a moment, Odin said, "And they did. I took you, and returned to my tent, sending word to my bodyguard to bury the body of Gunnlod-Queen, honourably, as she deserved. Later that same day, the Casket was captured, and the war was effectively over." 

Loki shifted uncomfortably, glancing from his father to Helblindi, wondering just what wounds were being reopened. The Jotun would surely be justified in thinking him a child of ill-omen, that it would have been better had Laufey killed him outright, instead of his mother. 

However, Helblindi merely said, 

"Shall we pay a visit to the grave?" 

~oOo~

Gunnlod having been kinswoman to the king, her grave was in the same process of reclamation as the temple and the rest of its grounds. There were signs of rubble having been cleared away from the stone cairn that covered her resting place. Neither Odin nor Helblindi spoke, and Loki was unable to think of anything to say. He did not know whether he imagined the feeling of… someone there, but he stood at the gravesite in silence for a long time, trying to hold onto the sensation, the knowledge that someone had died for love of him, without any requirement he be worthy of the sacrifice. He wondered, for a moment, whether anything would have been different, had he grown up knowing that. He realized there was little point in speculation about the past, but perhaps the thought was worth holding onto even now.

And then, finally, he realized he had stood too long, trespassed on the patience of both Helblindi and his father, and he turned away with a gesture of apology. Helblindi, his own eyes fixed on the past, did not seem to notice, but in the space left by Helblindi's silence, Odin brushed a hand against Loki's shoulder. 

Then they walked back to the palace to rejoin the others. 

~oOo~

Tony walked into the banquet hall with the rest of the superheroes, reflecting that whoever managed to export Asgardian hangover remedies to Earth would be a billionaire before the end of the quarter. 

And whoever exported Asgardian booze would probably have the planet subjugated by next Thursday. 

He knew he sounded like something out of a Norse myth, but he blamed the whole thing on Loki. And, okay, on Johnny Storm, too. Which meant Sif and-- what was his name-- Volstagg also had to come in for a share of the responsibility. 

They had returned from the trip to Jotunheim to find out that Sif and the big guy had traveled back to Earth to round up the rest of the allies who'd participated in the battle. Tony wasn't ashamed to admit it, he'd felt a jolt of panic when he realized Magneto and Mystique had accepted the invitation, but Magneto and Xavier seemed to be taking the opportunity to… well, to hang out, away from the eyes of humans or the majority of their allies on either side. Magneto was smart enough to relax when he didn't have a point to make, and it was kind of touching how both of them seemed to enjoy the chance to let their guard down together. 

Mystique was smart, but in Tony's experience there was never a moment when she didn't have a point to make, and he had never known her to let down her guard. However, astonishingly, Clint and Natasha stepped up and claimed her, all assassins together, and the three of them went off with Thor's buddies the Warriors for a tour of the armoury. Tony carefully did not think about what sort of "fun" they might be having together. He just frankly hoped Fandral was recovered from what Thor had said was a very nasty battle wound.

Which left the Fantastic Four, although Sue and Reed were so interested in learning all about Asgard (for _Science!_ ) that the only ones who needed to be entertained were Johnny and Ben. Thor was doing the Crown Prince of Asgard shtick, backed up by Sif, with the two sensible Fantastics and Storm and whichever of the Avengers wanted the grand tour, and when it became obvious that Johnny and Ben weren't interested, Thor had suggested that his brother--

 _Oh._ Okay. So the whole thing was actually _Thor's_ fault. 

Anyway, Thor had explained there was a tavern in Asgard but, for class-related reasons (which should have been entirely incomprehensible to an American citizen but, in fact, were not) the residents of the palace were not precisely welcome there. But Loki, apparently, was, and Thor suggested that perhaps Loki could accompany Johnny and Ben and whoever else wanted to go, and they could all have a pleasant drink. 

Yeah, Thor. _Great_ idea. 

Now, you might have expected, Tony being a guy who was all for Science, that he would join Steve and Bruce and Rhodey in Thor's museum-tour group. Not on your life. If, on Asgard, Magic and Science were pretty much interchangeable, then that meant _Loki_ was pretty much _Stephen Hawking_ , and _that_ was the guy Tony wanted to be explaining Asgard to him. 

Right. Yes. For _Science._

Anyway, Loki had seemed a little nervous about going back to the tavern, as if he thought his welcome might have been withdrawn, but that was frankly so much like Loki that Tony paid very little attention to him. It turned out Loki was worried because he had pulled rank and thrown his weight around some to get the Asgardian troops to leave the Deathwing to him, and he thought maybe the fact he'd made a point of his status might have… changed things. But since this was not, in fact, mythology, the soldiers seemed to have no objections to not being killed, gloriously or otherwise, and also they apparently viewed rank as there to be pulled in the first place, particularly by princes whether banished or not. 

All of which was to say the group's welcome was warm, and Asgardian girls found Johnny Storm just as irresistible as Earth girls did, and at one point Tony seemed to remember himself and Loki yelling across a table at each other, Loki explaining something about magic that seemed mesmerizing at the time although now Tony couldn't remember a word of it, while (and okay, he _had_ to have hallucinated this part) the musicians in the corner played "The Black Velvet Band." 

After that, everything was kind of a blur, until he woke up this morning in a dogpile in what turned out to be Loki's bed, his arms around a werewolf and Johnny Storm draped over both of them, Mitchell and Loki practically hanging off the mattress on either side. If he hadn't been so sick it would have been kind of funny. And if his mouth hadn't felt like the tomb of the Deathwing, he probably would have kissed one of the amused-looking young maids who turned up at the crucial moment bearing platters of greasy breakfast food, and about sixteen gallons of tea. 

Tony now understood the tea thing. Totally. 

And then Coulson had showed up, impeccable as always, and shepherded assorted superheroes off to make themselves presentable for the ceremonies that evening, while Loki, the fink, quietly sloped off somewhere with his housemates. Although he did actually sort of lay hands on everyone before he left, which left the superheroes feeling almost kind of human, and Loki looking nearly as green as the bedspread, and possibly also like it would be a good idea for him to lie down for a while. 

Regardless, by evening Tony was completely recovered from what had been a four-star hangover, which had to be some kind of record and a tribute to both greasy Asgardian breakfasts and… whatever the hell Loki had done to them before he disappeared. 

Which, come to think of it, was actually a little weird, since he'd looked like he desperately needed to go back to bed, and they'd all woken up _in_ his bed. Tony had intended to give that some thought, but was distracted by the opulence of the banquet hall-- which seriously made his house in Malibu look like a picture of Quaker modesty by comparison-- and then by the sight of Odin, at the head table, rising to his feet. Everyone else in the room-- and there was a _lot_ of "everyone else"-- also stood.

The guard escorting the Avengers and the other superheroes-- and Loki's friends and Magneto and Mystique, but under the circumstances Tony figured it was okay to call everyone a superhero for the occasion-- gestured to them to stand in an open space in front of the head table. The group formed up into ranks without being told, and Odin and Fury exchanged the same kind of formal greetings they had in the throne room the day before. 

Tony took the opportunity to covertly eye the group at the head table: Odin of course, with the queen to his left, Thor to Odin's right, and Loki to the left of the queen. Thor looked… bigger, somehow. More golden and shiny than ever, as if he was reflecting Asgard, somehow. Glancing surreptitiously around, Tony found himself concluding that Thor was actually reflecting back the… the love of the place. Because it was evident, more than evident, in the faces of everyone who looked at him. 

That was evidently not the case with his brother, who looked like nothing quite so much as the moon in daytime, barely visible in the light of the sun. He might have seemed less washed-out had he been wearing lighter-coloured clothing, but Tony was suddenly very aware it was only a couple of weeks since he and Coulson had busted Loki out of his cell, a couple of days since Loki had died, and the time in between hadn't been a tropical vacation for anyone, but probably a lot less so for Loki. He didn't look hungover anymore, just very tired. 

Or, possibly, he too was reflecting back the love the court felt for him, because the expressions of the Asgardians, as they looked at the second prince, suddenly made Tony understand why Loki seemed so eager to get back to the scruffy little house in Bristol and mop some floors. 

Loki kept his eyes dutifully fixed on Odin as the king spoke, but when the Earthling heroes finally moved to take their places at the long tables, he did shift his attention to them. Tony quickly checked to make sure the king and queen weren't looking, and then caught Loki's eye and made a horrible face at him. Loki's calmly impassive expression cracked into one of startled amusement, just for a second, and Tony felt much better as he took his seat. 

It was not completely by accident that Tony found himself sitting next to Annie, who was _totally_ a superhero, and according to Johnny Storm also a wicked hand with a fire extinguisher. 

"Where did you guys vanish to, earlier?" Tony asked. "Loki and George both looked like they should go back to bed."

Annie looked both amused and a little exasperated. "Loki has a… _thing_ … about his bedroom here. It's not exactly cozy, as you've probably noticed."

Tony shrugged. "Seemed cozy enough to me. Mind you, I think there were six of us in the bed."

"Yes, and none of you were in any state to pay attention to atmosphere," Annie agreed. "And before you suggest it, no, we're not keeping Loki drunk the whole time he's in Asgard. Eventually, he might start to feel differently, but for now there's a very short list of places here that he feels comfortable. One of them is a nice quiet reading room in the library-- believe me, _not_ a high-traffic spot-- so the boys had a nap in the comfy chairs and I did some reading."

"I hear it's a well-stocked library," Tony said. "There's a book about the Beatles and everything."

"There's one about Jotunheim, too," Annie replied. "More than one, but the others were in runes or something. I think the one I looked at had a spell on it so it translated itself for whoever was trying to read it."

"Did you show it to Loki?" Tony asked. 

"No, but the librarian said I could take it when we go, so long as I promise to make sure it's returned eventually."

"Yeah, just watch out for those Asgardian overdue fines," Tony muttered. 

"The loan periods are pretty generous though," Annie pointed out. "What with everyone living for thousands of years or whatever it is. Anyway, it must have been written before the war, because there's a lot on culture and very little about evil monstrous Frost Giants. Loki can read it at home, when we get back."

"Sure he's going with you?" Tony asked, teasing. 

"Not funny," Annie snapped, and refused to talk to him again until about the third course. Tony finally apologized, and not just because it was awkward having her mad at him and right at his elbow. He didn't have superpowers without the suit, but his hearing was perfectly fine and he was aware of voices at the table behind him, basically speculating about how someone had the nerve to show his face. It was pretty obvious they weren't talking about Thor, and Tony wanted to engage Annie in conversation mostly to keep her from hearing them. 

The voices shut up when Thor came around as the tables were being cleared between courses-- fourth and fifth? Tony had lost track, and had long since quit doing anything but push food around on his plate, feeling guilty about the waste but with no desire to end the night by puking-- to see how his friends were doing. Annie and her housemates apparently took Thor's actions as permission to leave the table for a minute as well, and they scooted off to talk to Loki and his mother. 

Annie's chair being thus unoccupied, Thor sat in it. 

"It seemed polite to ensure my guests are enjoying themselves," he explained. "I hope you are."

Natasha, across the table, had stopped eating at least forty-five minutes ago, but she smiled quite genuinely. "It's been a fascinating evening."

"How's your brother enjoying himself?" Tony heard himself ask. 

Thor grimaced. "I wager he is not. Except, of course, that he has the almost undivided attention of our mother, which is always pleasant. I believe he is regaling her with tales of two miscreants named 'Patrick' and 'Trevor.' Truly, they seem to be terrifying brigands." Thor looked so amused that Tony knew he was missing something. 

"Everyone's awfully glad to have you home, aren't they?" Tony could not stop himself from pointing out. 

Thor raised his eyebrows. "You are not as subtle as you seem to believe, Tony Stark. Yes, my return is welcome to the people of Asgard. And my brother's is… far less so. We might, if we wished, argue where the blame for that lies, but it is perhaps best to simply agree that Loki cannot help being as he is, and no more can Asgard." Thor leaned toward Tony and performed what felt like a conversational 180: "I am the favoured prince, and I always have been. The fact is, I am very easy for Asgard to love."

"Are you, now?" Tony said, amused. Thor always talked as though he had been an entitled, arrogant brat before his exile to Earth, and if that was true then he had definitely put some work into correcting those character flaws, because compared to, say, Tony, the God of Thunder was now also the picture of Quaker modesty. But it looked as if two days back in Asgard was enough to dump him back into his old ways. 

Thor smiled. "You mock me. I did not say that I am easy to love _in general_. Merely that Asgard finds it very easy." When Tony looked blank, Thor explained kindly, "You must understand: my virtues are the sort on which Asgard places most value, and my flaws are the kind they find easiest to forgive. I was shaped by nature into exactly what Asgard most wishes to be, I offer them no challenge, and so they love me. 

"My brother, on the other hand… His gifts, as well as his failings, are of a sort our realm finds it difficult to understand or accept. He should not have to change himself, but Asgard will not change either, and therefore it really is best for him to live elsewhere the majority of the time. 

"However." Thor looked at Tony, and across the table at Natasha, as if he was deciding whether to share a delightful secret with them. Tony wasn't surprised when he apparently decided to do so, since Thor wasn't the reticent type. "I confess, reflection has never truly been my forte. But of late it has occurred to me… When my brother and I were children, we believed our father embodied everything Asgard was. We feared and loved him, believed him unyielding, and both of us assumed I was his favourite, as I was of the rest of the court. 

"But I think now of the allowances that have been made, the efforts to repair what has been broken, the gestures toward meeting Loki on ground he understands-- " Thor turned his head and glanced to where his brother sat with their mother, her hand on his forearm, both of them listening to something George was saying. Thor smiled to himself and then went on, "I think of all that, and I ask myself, who indeed was our father's favourite all along?" The smile widened, and Thor remarked, "I believe I will mention that to him, sometime. My brother is extremely intelligent but I very much doubt he will think of that for himself." At the head table, Odin gestured, and Thor got to his feet. "Time for the tales of valour to be told. Remember, if you are called upon, modesty is not a virtue in Asgard."

Thor made his way back to his place at the head table, and Tony glanced at Natasha. 

"Thing is, he's not quite right. He actually _is_ kind of easy to love _in general_."

~oOo~

Loki watched Annie, George and Mitchell hurry back to their seats, glanced sideways at his mother, and was pleased to see her looking after them with an expression of affection. His eyes then slid past his mother, to his father and to then Thor, who was once again taking his place beside Father. 

Loki checked, more out of curiosity than anything, but the old savage curl of jealousy did not materialize. Thor was the crown prince, and deserved to be, and was also one of the great heroes of Midgard currently being celebrated. Therefore, his place was at Father's right hand, and Loki was placed for symmetry at Mother's left. It was, he reflected, regrettable that the notion of symmetry had not occurred to him several centuries ago, but in the days when he believed there was a competition to be heir he would not have found it comforting anyway. He had not wanted to actually be king, but he had wanted very badly to be chosen, believing that would fill the aching emptiness in his heart. 

Now that the emptiness had been filled it was quite pleasant to sit beside Mother, especially now she seemed to want to talk to him. Previously, Loki reflected, she had probably been put off by his glowering silence, which had made him feel ignored, which naturally made his glowering worse. Humans would probably have better sense than to let things get to such a state, which was one of the advantages of knowing you had less than a hundred years to live and little time to waste. Too much time had indeed been wasted, but it was not too late. Loki put his hand over his mother's and squeezed it affectionately, enjoying the little glow of warmth that resulted when her hand turned under his and she squeezed back. 

It was now time for the company to boast of their feats of arms, which had always been the part of these feasts that bored Loki the most. It was not, of course, that he was humble and considered such displays unseemly, merely that magic (or indeed proficiency with throwing daggers) did not count as feats of arms and therefore his exploits had never much interested the court. It was not that Loki objected to bragging, but it had seemed only fair that if he had to listen to everyone else, then everyone else should also have to listen to him. 

That, too, had changed. He had in the past longed for the same recognition, the same affection, the court gave Thor and his friends. Now he knew that to be impossible: whether it had always been so or whether he had done it to himself with his own actions, Loki was quite sure the coldness of the court was not his imagination. If he could be certain his rampage was directly responsible for the distaste, Loki would have been sorry, but the plain fact was that he had always believed it existed anyway, and he was now rather more selective about the approval he sought. It would be the height of folly to continue to eat his heart out for the affection of people he himself disliked. 

So: Loki had no interest in telling any stories of his own, but now that it would be friends of his who were speaking, he was eager to hear them. Surely Tony Stark would rise to the occasion with an epic worthy of any Asgardian braggart, none of whom were likely to notice he was spoofing them. And no one with any sense of humour at all could fail to be pleased by the prospect of watching Steve Rogers attempt to overcome the handicap of his own innate humility, although if he became genuinely embarrassed surely someone-- Thor-- would intervene and tell the story for him. Perhaps, too, Annie would be able to tell about her daring foray into the lair of the Red Skull, although there being no bloodshed involved it might not be as well received as it ought. 

But before anyone else spoke, the Allfather would have a word. Loki, still unconsciously holding his mother's hand, turned in his chair as the Allfather rose and silence fell. The rogue thought crossed his mind that his father resembled a heavily-armoured Dumbledore, preparing to address the students of Hogwarts at the arrival feast, and he found it necessary to bite the side of his tongue to keep from giggling. 

And then Odin began to speak, and the urge to giggle went away of its own accord as he listened to his father repeat his words of welcome to the Midgardians, and then continue, 

"This is indeed a joyful occasion for my queen and myself, as we celebrate not only our elder son's accomplishments in forging this renewed alliance with Midgard and its mightiest heroes-- " Thor looked pleased and surprisingly rather sheepish at being singled out, which Loki found touching. And then he forgot Thor completely as Odin went on, "-- but also the return to Asgard of our younger son, whose full pardon has been earned though his own efforts, by making amends for the harm he committed."

Nobody hissed, which was almost surprising, although one would have to be sly indeed to avoid the Allfather's eye. Frigga's hand tightened on Loki's and he realized the wording was deliberate: his pardon was earned rather than bestowed, and thus really his, and so no one could take it away from him. Loki found himself biting the inside of his lip and blinking rapidly. 

"Will he return to live among us, Allfather?" Tyr asked suddenly. There was no malice in the general's tone, and Loki found himself wondering whether Tyr had been primed to ask the question everyone would be wondering. 

"That," Odin replied, "will be up to Loki. He is a free citizen of Asgard, and such decisions are his to make."

Loki glanced at his mother, in the same line of vision as his father. She smiled, covered their linked hands with her other, and for once he had absolutely no doubt of what he was being given her blessing to do. His voice was steady as he said,

"My home is no longer here, but I would be grateful for permission to return and visit those I love." 

"Not permission," Odin replied calmly, "but the right. And always, of course, our welcome." The king smiled, and Loki felt warmth flowing through his entire body, reaching to the tips of his fingers and toes, and a sensation of relief unlike anything he had ever imagined. He smiled back, glanced past Father to see the grin on Thor's face. And then all the Midgardian superheroes burst into loud and obnoxious cheering, completely ignoring the tepid response from all the Asgardians who were not Tyr, Sif, or the Warriors Three, and they refused to stop until Loki stood and waved to them. 

After that, Loki was quite content to listen to the stories of his friends' exploits, which did not disappoint. They were unable to completely shake off the Midgardian custom of self-deprecation, but that trait, and the fact they were still surprised and thrilled to be alive, made for hilariously lively tales that thoroughly enchanted their audience. They also retained the Midgardian habit of talking over one another and shared storytelling, so that Mr. Fantastic and the Thing supported Steve's account of the assault on the Red Skull's aircraft, and then took over to describe the battle with the Dire Wraith, ceding the floor to Rhodey to tell of the aircraft's capture and then resuming the narrative at the point at which the Thing fell thrall to the Dire Wraith and had to be restrained by Tony. 

Steve's battle with the Red Skull naturally took pride of place. He resolved the tension between his modesty and the need to tell a good story in the most Steve way imaginable, by making Helblindi the hero of the tale and telling it so well his listeners seemed to completely forget they were cheering for a Jotun. 

The storytelling was drawing to its conclusion, and Loki was thinking with longing of his bed-- not, alas, the bed actually waiting for him here, his own actual bed back in Bristol, but tired enough that anywhere would do-- when Thor spoke up:

"Brother, you have not yet told us how you defeated the monster."

 _Bother_ Thor. Loki had already told him he had no intention of speaking at this gathering-- his single utterance was already more than he had wished to say before the court. Let Thor come to Bristol if he wanted to hear about it. They could order an Indian takeaway and sit on the floor, and all of them could trade stories. As many Avengers as felt inclined to join him could be squeezed in as well. 

Loki glared, but Thor looked placidly back at him as though he had no idea his brother was annoyed. 

"Tell us," he prompted. And then, treacherously, he added, "There were warriors enough who would have been willing to aid you, including myself. Why did you insist on fighting it alone?"

 _You already know the answer, brother,_ Loki thought, redoubling the ferocity of his glare, only to have it bounce harmlessly off Thor's pose of innocence. It was evident Thor did not mind making both of them conspicuous. Loki was considering the possibility of placing a very small curse on his brother, nothing harmful, just a minor matter of his tongue becoming temporarily useless, when Odin spoke. 

"I confess, I would also like to hear the story from your own lips. Particularly since it seemed for a time that it would never be possible to do so."

Loki winced, felt guilty, and gave in. 

"The creature, the Deathwing, was a formidable beast in itself, but it had been enchanted," Loki began, speaking rapidly. 

"What manner of enchantment?" Thor demanded. Loki resisted the urge to stick out his tongue. 

"The Dire Wraiths had cursed it so that it could only be killed by magic, and so that its death would rebound upon its slayer. There was, therefore, no purpose in any of our warriors attacking it by conventional means: the creature would have killed them, and they had no hope of killing it."

"Thor could have slain it!" shouted a voice from somewhere in the back of the room. Drunk, doubtless, and in need of cleaning out his ears. There were cheers from the voice's vicinity.

"Yes," Loki replied, enunciating every syllable, "Mjolnir being magical, Thor could have slain it. And its death _would have rebounded upon its slayer._ Which in very simple terms means that if Thor killed the creature, the curse would have then killed him. That was the nature of the enchantment. I myself am alive now solely because Helblindi owed a debt to... to my mother." Really, he needed to get out of Asgard, and quickly, before whatever was left of his disposition was utterly ruined. With an effort, he forced his eyebrows down to the same level and tried to smooth his face and his tone. 

The hall went quiet as even the stupidest person present considered the possibilities. 

"How did you know of this curse, brother?" Thor asked, and he no longer sounded playful. 

"A captured Dire Wraith, who later escaped, told me of it. Taunted me about it, in fact. The curse was meant to follow an extremely nasty Midgardian story-- "

"The story of the death of Thor," Nick Fury spoke up, and looked back impassively when every face turned toward him. "It's one of the legends told by the old Norse, when they had all winter to pass, and did it by making up stories. In that story, Thor was supposed to fight a great snake and then die of its venom. This was a simplified version, with a curse on the Deathwing to make sure of the result."

Loki shrugged. "In the presence of a curse, the obvious person to fight the creature was a sorcerer, and I happened to be present. Also, to be perfectly frank, if Thor really had fallen victim to the curse, it would have been a victory for the loathsome Dire Wraiths. Quite apart from the fact I would miss him, I had no intention of letting the Wraiths win. The simplest way to avoid that was to defeat the Deathwing myself."

"Simplicity itself," Thor agreed, his voice soft and yet reaching the very back of the hall. "It explains why you stopped me when I came to assist you. It does not, however, quite explain why you commandeered Mjolnir."

Loki laughed briefly. "That, I confess, was what you might call a shot in the dark. I had no suitable weapon, my powers are considerably reduced on Midgard, and I was beginning to be afraid I would run myself dry before the task was complete. It occurred to me that the enchantment on Mjolnir might have been removed, in which case I might be able to use it myself."

"What enchantment was that?" Mitchell called out. Loki would have words with him later, because Mitchell certainly knew about the enchantment upon Mjolnir. Loki distinctly remembered telling about it, as part of the story of how Thor returned to life and strength after his encounter with the Destroyer. With Loki. 

"When Thor was exiled, a spell was placed upon Mjolnir by the Allfather. Up until that point, Mjolnir was a mighty weapon, but all that was required to wield it was great strength. The enchantment was rather like the one upon the sword plucked from the stone by King Arthur." Glancing sideways, Loki could see confusion on most Asgardian faces. There was surely a book in the library that would relieve their curiosity. Let them go read. In the meantime, Loki abridged his account: "When Thor proved himself worthy, Mjolnir returned to him and with it his powers." Loki was conscious of speaking faster, forced himself to slow down now that he had gotten past the worst part. "And, since it was no longer needed, the enchantment was removed and so I was able to call Mjolnir myself." He shrugged again. "I lack great strength, obviously, but I still had enough magic left to make up the difference. As the mortals say, desperate times call for desperate measures."

That really should have been the end of it, the worst story ever told in the history of Asgardian story-telling, and he not even drunk enough to have an excuse. But Thor was not ready to let him alone. 

"The enchantment. Was it inscribed upon Mjolnir, in runes?"

Loki drummed his fingers upon the table. "I believe so."

"Runes that say-- " and here Thor exceeded himself, because he actually picked up Mjolnir, laid it on the table before him, and made pretense of reading: " _Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, will possess the power of Thor_." He looked up, blue gaze guileless. Loki stared back, unsure what response was expected of him. 

"Something like that, I believe," Loki replied tightly. 

"These runes, in fact?" Thor asked, holding up Mjolnir so those sitting nearby could see there was, indeed, something inscribed on the face of the hammer. 

Someone, in the silence, said, "Oooh." It was almost certainly Tony Stark. 

Loki blinked, his hands going still upon the tabletop. He had not, of course, _looked_ at the bloody hammer. He had been rather distracted at the time, and the weapon had so quickly become literally bloody that _Some pig!_ could have been written upon it and he would not have noticed. But still-- he did not understand Thor's purpose in cornering him like this, but… the runes were gone. They had been part of the spell, and so they must be gone, because the spell--

Thor was looking around the room. "Sinarr Holtison," he called out. "Would you attend on me for a moment?"

The warrior who approached the head table was as big as Volstagg, and had the reputation of maintaining his strength by lifting the carcasses of oxen. Thor gestured toward Mjolnir. 

"Pass that to my brother. Please," he added, scrupulously remembering the courtesies of Midgard. 

Holtison grasped Mjolnir by the handle and made to lift it. He straightened too quickly and let out an audible "oof!" when he was yanked back by the weight of the hammer. Undaunted, and certainly drunk, he spent a further few minutes wrestling with the weapon, to general amusement, before Thor thanked and then dismissed him. 

And turned back to Loki.

"That enchantment, brother?" he asked innocently. 

"It must have been replaced," Loki defended himself, "because it was not there when _I_ \-- " He trailed foolishly off as Thor turned to their father, looking expectant. 

"Nothing has been replaced," Odin said, "because nothing was removed."

"A weapon like this could not remain in Midgard with no wards upon it," Thor agreed. "The Man of Iron would use it as a nutcracker."

"That's not a bad idea," Tony Stark could just be heard to remark, for which Loki was grateful because it made at least a few eyes turn toward him. 

Odin smiled. Not the fatherly smile, the fierce one that accompanied sometimes painful lessons, and Loki had no idea who it was aimed at. 

Then he stood, picked up Mjolnir as though it weighed nothing, and leaned past Frigga to place it on the table in front of Loki. 

"Pick it up," he invited. Loki looked at the hammer as though touching it would lead to instant death, for himself or those he loved. Odin prompted him. "Loki."

There being no alternative, Loki pushed back his chair, rose to his feet, and gripped the leather-wrapped handle in both hands. Cautiously, so as not to knock himself foolishly off-balance as Holtison had done, Loki lifted. 

Mjolnir rose from the table and came level with his eyes, so quickly he was fortunate not to knock himself out like clown. He took a quick step backward to catch his balance, staring mesmerized at the runes on the weapon's face. 

Then he carefully laid the great hammer down on the table again and took a step back. 

There was complete silence in the hall for a moment. And then Thor rose, walked behind their parents to his brother's place, picked up Mjolnir. 

And laid a hand on Loki's shoulder, leaning forward and saying quietly, 

"There is a certain kind of talk we shall hear no more of, my brother." 

And Thor walked in the silence back to his seat, while Loki sank into his own. 

~oOo~

The house having been empty for a fortnight, much of the food in the refrigerator had gone bad. Mitchell and George were throwing things away, amid noisy sounds of disgust, when Loki went upstairs. He opened the windows, leaning across the bed and then over the book case at its foot to get at the eaves. Then he sat on the bed and sighed with happiness as fresh air began to displace the stale smell of abandonment in his room.

After a moment, Loki rose and pulled the covers back, stripping the sheets from the mattress. 

"You’re not doing _laundry_ the moment you get home?" Annie's amused voice came from the doorway. Loki looked sheepishly over his shoulder. 

"It occurred to me that after six weeks, it might be pleasant to have fresh sheets," he explained. "I was going to ask Mitchell and George if they had anything they wished to have washed."

Annie folded her arms and leaned on the doorjamb. "Back to normal, then?"

"As quickly as I can manage," Loki admitted. "I am not supposed to return to work until Monday, which is… well, not tomorrow, but I thought I might pay a visit to the school in the morning. In case any customs have changed in my absence." 

Annie tilted her head and smiled. "Sounds like a very wise idea."

A guilty thought crossed Loki's mind. "I suppose George and Mitchell are also in trouble with their employers. I did not think of that-- "

Annie raised a hand. "No, stop right there. George just checked his messages and there was one from the hospital. Apparently he was spotted on a news report, helping Mr. Coulson fire rockets at Dire Wraith ships. They said if he and Mitchell really were out saving the world all this time, they can have their jobs back."

"This is not the low profile they wished to maintain," Loki said uneasily. "That may create trouble, may it not? With the other vampires?"

"Sure, if they want to take on the Avengers. And their magical consultant," Annie replied, and strolled into the room. "Welcome home." 

Loki found himself dropping his armload of bedding on the floor. His arms were, for the moment, more pleasantly occupied. 

 

_END_

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Housemates doodles](https://archiveofourown.org/works/892676) by [FracturedIron](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FracturedIron/pseuds/FracturedIron)
  * [Brother's Keeper fan art](https://archiveofourown.org/works/892692) by [FracturedIron](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FracturedIron/pseuds/FracturedIron)
  * [Loki & Tony Brother's Keeper Scene page 1](https://archiveofourown.org/works/892786) by [FracturedIron](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FracturedIron/pseuds/FracturedIron)
  * [Loki & Tony Brother's Keeper Scene page 2](https://archiveofourown.org/works/892791) by [FracturedIron](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FracturedIron/pseuds/FracturedIron)
  * [Loki and Annie Dancing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/899476) by [FracturedIron](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FracturedIron/pseuds/FracturedIron)
  * [Drunk in Asgard and Mitchell's Face](https://archiveofourown.org/works/899482) by [FracturedIron](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FracturedIron/pseuds/FracturedIron)
  * [The aftermath](https://archiveofourown.org/works/900695) by [FracturedIron](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FracturedIron/pseuds/FracturedIron)
  * [Loki's Helmet](https://archiveofourown.org/works/900703) by [FracturedIron](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FracturedIron/pseuds/FracturedIron)
  * [Loki's Sacrifice](https://archiveofourown.org/works/909650) by [FracturedIron](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FracturedIron/pseuds/FracturedIron)
  * [Loki and Justin Hammer](https://archiveofourown.org/works/923671) by [FracturedIron](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FracturedIron/pseuds/FracturedIron)
  * [Worthy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1161634) by [HellenHighwater](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HellenHighwater/pseuds/HellenHighwater)




End file.
